What do I remember?
Whitewashed walls
Earthen floor settle bed
Turf fire in the hearth gently burning
Half door in the doorway
Window small
Couple in their seventies
Elderly
Came home from England
Outbreak of the war
Chair and table
Crockery and delph
A room above
Sunshine in the door
Outside the River Moy
Impressive river
Flowing strong
Awaiting fishermen
Up from Dublin
Cottage like a café
Gave them welcome
Come inside come in
They gave my mammy
A home from home in England
When she left home
Her fortune now to find
Now she brought the priest her eldest son
To visit them
Returning kind for kind
The cottage now?
Maybe fallen in
Nothing last forever as we know
But the memory does
Especially when it’s beauty
Of a lovely couple
And the Moy’s eternal flow
Brian Fahy
19 October 2021
+ The couple were Michael and Maria Devaney
Erris Poetry 