Thanks Freckle, night, sleep tight.xx
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I deserted the fells for a run on country lanes on Saturday and enjoyed the Blackthorn blossom emerging along the road side. The buds were breaking on the Silver Birches in my garden and it seemed as though the recent showers of rain had reminded them all that it was spring.
The Blackthorn
The blackthorn was his father's,
a piece of Ireland
that the old man could still get his hands around
even as his hands grew weak,
refused to hold. My father
never knew Ireland;
when he gripped the walking stick
it was something else he was holding on to.
I watched my father
get old; he would stare at his hand
and open and close his fist,
try to fight the arthritis.
By then he had lost the stick,
and he could have used it
to work his grip, to beat
at the hard knot that was tying him up.
When he died he was laid in the ground
only a few feet from his father,
while in Ireland the sturdy blackthorns
were defying that sad land
and bursting with white blossoms.
Louis McKee