Most days I watch the sun set over these green fields with me Dad. We live at the bottom of that bothreen down there to the right in the dirty white bungalow with the swallow nests in the eaves. It’s the one with the dusky ivy twistin and climbin up the walls inta the gutters. Dad built it years ago before I was even born so the meadowgrass grows up the middle of the lane now like the mane on a horse and the hawthorn bushes cave in on it all the way up from the road. Was about to climb down and go back to the house a minute ago cause sometimes I go a bit mental sittin up here with these feelins but the wind rose and the sun shone out so I had to stay. There’s nothin like bein on top of this hill in the quiet of these fields when the mist is this perfect. The good tings in life are up here. The birds and the music of the wind in the trees. The clouds as white as swansdown clownin across the sky. Love to sit up here in the fadin sun with a cool breeze. Look down into the valley below the shattered army of clouds floatin by all confused with me arms wrapped around me knees. Clouds. Neldoracht. You can see what’s in a day from the clouds.
Up here it’s as if the valley smiles back at ya. Love the light of a summer’s moon over it or the new growth of spring with the straight and crooked greens everywhere all across its fields. Love the harvest breezes and the school of colours and that sweet summer green grass smell. Everythin starts to open up then. All the doors and windows and flowers. Feel like I can breathe when the spring comes.
Most people kinda bitch about the weather in Ireland but I like it. Ja says there’s no sky, just clouds sittin on your head depressin the shite outta ya. Well I like soft days like today when it’s misty and rainin but not too wet, when I can feel the moisture all around me like a blanket. Can feel the world around me instead of feelin like an outsider in it. People’d tink I’m a bit mental if I told them how much I love the thin puceyblue oily Irish skies and all the types of rain. Or even the frost and snow. Frosty winds that tear the face off ya. Love them and even the thin ice the frost leaves over the puddles. Cracks me up to run through fields of frost starkers. Meself and Ja did it last year. He was stoned outta his bleedin box. That was some laugh.
The flowers sprinkled on the grass are classic. They’re nearly as good when the summer harvest is over. Love the seasons. The yellowgreen of August leaves. The nuts and apples and acorns in May. Dad says apples and sloes are the secret fruit of eternal life and healin. The flowers are the best though. They come alive with all these colours, all these different reds and purples and whites and pinks.
Picked all the colours I could see for Dad on the way up here to bring to him in the hospital. He’s like me. He loves all the wild flowers in the fields and on the side of the road. Thought I was finished gatherin them till I saw a balcaisean in a ditch. Its strawyellow flower was like a small sun in the nettles. Dad hated balcaisean when he was a young fella but since he grew up he’s never stopped goin on about how much he loves them. He calls them geosadan, ragweed and buachalan bui too. Says that when the fields are full of balcaiseans it means the land is bad. Farmers usedta get in a flock of sheep to get rid of them cause they spread like mad.
I left down the other flowers and jumped into the ditch to pick the balcaisean to add to me bunch. Trampled a load of nettles outta the way and stung the bleedin legs off meself. White spots where they got me. Took a hold of the balcaisean and tried to pull it up. Bastard of a ting to get up. Wouldn’t budge. Dad was dead right. So I dug it up around the roots, but it still wouldn’t budge. Tough bastard. By the time I’d cut through the stem with a sharp stone the flower looked no way as beautiful. When I tried puttin it in with the rest of me flowers it stood out like a coconut in a bag of bleedin apples so I kinda put it back into the ditch all gentle like and felt guilty for killin it when it wasn’t doin me any harm and cause it looked so lovely there, where it’d been before.