No skyscrapers here, Uncle Hugh, I said
I had come from London’s crowded streets
High-rise buildings everywhere buses running by
Tarmac pavements constant noise
Airplanes in the sky
Now here I stood in mammy’s glen
In a quiet evening sky
The still of hillsides all around
The river running by
Moor and bog
An evening breeze
A lifetime’s work all done
Uncle Hugh for Bangor
A peaceful setting sun
Now the sun sets here on me
At seventy-five years old
A quiet life by Stirling town
Not crowded here not cold
A gentle evening to my life
Grandsons near at hand
The old have gone
The young appear
I sit in my grandstand
And every day my mind goes back
To that lovely lonely glen
To the days when life was everywhere
Along the river’s run
Children at play and going to school
Men out in the field
Bringing turf home for the fire
And boxty for your meal
It was my playground right enough
Heaven on earth to me
Away from mills and coalmines
And England’s industry
Here by the western ocean
On the edges of the world
I’d found a buried treasure
A simple life unfurled
Brian Fahy
23 March 2022
Erris Poetry 