Memory of my Father

I have a memory of my father

sitting on a log in the shed,

reading the Sunday Independent

between the lawnmower and the garden tools;

it was his quiet  refuge.

I see him through the open door,

from across a narrow lawn newly mown;

bees are tracing zig-zag lines

between us;

and the lupins are in full bloom.

Summer stretched out over the fields and the railway line,

beyond the gates, out to the Shannon, and beyond;

but Summer is a precarious season.

I like lupins,

they look like Summer.