That old hill

Without that old hill

Where we were born

We surely never would

Have thought to run

Downhill from the Rath

And the concrete water tower

Away from the rippling Bann

Where the kingfishers live

And would have dreamed

A single dream, not more.

Without that old hill

And the broken-mill stream

Where man-boy swam

With his collie friend

And the silver fish came

And we washed our hair

In the misty morning rain

Midst the dew drenched flowers

We would never have stretched

For what was out of reach. 

Without that old hill

And its ivy-clad tower

We would have kept to the flat

And known no foreign faces

But the ups and downs mean

That we grow long legs

In such rustic places

And feel vagrant itches

That no earthly power

Knows how to scratch.

Without that old hill

We would never have picked

Potatoes because we must

And fought back to back

For turf, them and us

Never felt the thirst

For the moon and stars

Fate takes us where it will

But no-one takes away our hill

Only we have that power. 

Life on that old hill

May not be easy

And the peg may not fit

But when you shrug

And turn your back

The red sun sets it face 

And blurs the backward path

So it glows once again

Though it never was like that

And will never be the same.

Sent from my iPhone