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Assumption Eve by John Ennis
The last Assumption eve I saw them together
My mother, Jack, and my father,
Mid-August evening, a dry spell.
Down from the new bungalow, the old man’s drills
Of cabbage plants newly in, they could do
With a watering. And Jack is doing this
While the three are laughing at something
All still to the good, hale, if ageing, as I
Step out of the car. Tony has picked me up
In Maynooth. I’m home on my last break
Before the Masters. The plants are thriving,
Why wouldn’t they be, the clay and mould of thatch
With bog scraw where the roof fell in a few years back.
And we are in no hurry at all to break the magic
Of the twilight, Jack watering, the old man at ease
For once, outside, and my mother talking to her brother
Uplifted above the unimportant, as Jack he fills his last
Bucket from the tank he built, the plants are well soaked now