Every year of childhood
The great adventure came
Suitcases to Tyldesley station
And begin
Train and boat and train and bus
Tom Comny’s vanguard car
The quiet lake the Big Turn
The homestead spied afar
In later days my knowledge
Expanded from the glen
I came to know the Mayo coast
Blacksod and Achill then
Heard tales of boats to Sligo
And to America
My father’s people went out there
Chicago Illinois
The whole world on its axis turns
Around your sense of place
The fixed spot of your heart’s desire
Encircling universe
The glen my mother’s place it is
That roots me to the earth
Its beautiful horizons
Full of heavenly worth
Tuiscean hill and Carraful
The river running by
Barnatra and Carrowmore
Even Carrowteigue I spy
That jut of mountain by the sea
That looks out to the west
This slowly turning universe
The place that I love best
To wake up in those mornings
Of childhood summer days
And follow the sun across the sky
To Achill’s dreamy haze
And in the evening by the fire
With cousins by your side
To sleep the sleep that angels keep
Down by Glencullen side
Brian Fahy
22 October 2021
Erris Poetry 