In Memory Of My Mother I do not think of you lying in the wet clay Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see You walking down a lane among the poplars On your way to the station, or happily Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday - You meet me and you say: 'Don't forget to see about the cattle - ' Among your earthiest words the angels stray. And I think of you walking along a headland Of green oats in June, So full of repose, so rich with life - And I see us meeting at the end of a town On a fair day by accident, after The bargains are all made and we can walk Together through the shops and stalls and markets Free in the oriental streets of thought. O you are not lying in the wet clay, For it is a harvest evening now and we Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight And you smile up at us - eternally. Memory of My Father Every old man I see Reminds me of my father When he had fallen in love with death One time when sheaves were gathered. That man I saw in Gardiner Street Stumble on the kerb was one, He stared at me half-eyed, I might have been his son. And I remember the musician Faltering over his fiddle In Bayswater, London. He too set me the riddle. Every old man I see In October-coloured weather Seems to say to me "I was once your father." Come Dance with Kitty Stobling No, no, no, I know I was not important as I moved Through the colourful country, I was but a single Item in the picture, the name, not the beloved. O tedious man with whom no gods commingle. Beauty, who has described beauty? Once upon a time I had a myth that was a lie but it served: Trees walking across the crest of hills and my rhyme Cavorting on mile-high stilts and the unnerved Crowds looking up with terror in their rational faces. O dance with Kitty Stobling I outrageously Cried out-of-sense to them, while their timorous paces Stumbled behind Jove's page boy paging me. I had a very pleasant journey, thank you sincerely For giving me my madness back, or nearly. To my dear cousins in Sheffield, their spouses, partners, and extended families - the words of Patrick Kavanagh, above, say more (and better) of your dear Mother, Margaret, and her late husband James, your Dad, than anything I could ever say. Thinking of you all in Kilcar. v

Thank you for setting up this memorial to Margaret. We hope that you find it a positive experience developing the site and that it becomes a place of comfort and inspiration for you to visit whenever you want or need to.

I am I and you are you, whatever we were to each other that we still are. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? Life means all that it ever meant, it is the same as it ever was.