Shelves, dust and cobwebs
On old magazines
Flowers sprouting patterns
Opaque, yellow screens
Paint hardened brushes caked in shellac
These are the memories of my father’s work shed.

A place of curiosity for a young child
Familiar, yet completely unknown
I would go there alone
Climbing wide wooden rafters
Searching that place
Angle grinders and sanders
The tools of his trade.

Never clean or bright
With the strong citrus smell of Fast Orange
For removing stubborn oil stains from his hands
Or gelatinous green Swarfeega smelling as toxic as the filth
it took off.

Working hard on his dreams
Lorries, rally cars and anything with wheels.

Up the back an old Deutz digger that never starts

We beg him everyday, start the Deutz! Start the Deutz!
To no end.
Until a thunderous rumble, like the wall falling down in
the back yard announces its engine running and we race
up and ride with him.

The simple pleasures of young children
Immune from the toils of his world
We dig only for fun.

In the rally car
Aged two
Frightened by the sound
Or a roaring Mini Cooper engine
He torments me
I scream
Don’t rev though!
Don’t rev!
But he does.

Home from work frustrated
I embrace him
He shakes me from his leg
Too busy, too anxious for childish things
I console myself by laughing at the STP sticker on the lid
of the dustbin. Mr. Bellyman I call it, peeled and covered
in sticky food waste
Uncovering layer on top of layer
Replaced every year with the same label.

As a child his passion for work an obsession
To understand obsession
You have to get your own
And then labour at it
Every day
Forgetting everything else that matters in life
Even the people who love you.

But who am I to say?
To distinguish
What should matter to a man I love regardless
I have my obsessions
What will my children write about me?

Sundials
Garden pathways
Shadows under trees
Deepening green coniferous
Needles prickling my knees.

Mythry recalled
Lichen stones where mosses crawled
Encroaching viridescent cage around dad’s truck yard wall.

A monkey puzzle tree
Grabbed for curiosity
Who sat and scratched
Their heads more
Made-up lemurs
Or was it me?

I foraged underneath
Musty pines, forgotten rhymes
Then in for China tea
Were the leaves from there
Or porcelain?
So delicate and delft
Camellia scents, East Orient
In cups,
Of Antwerp’s theft
Our European wealth
Taken spoil
From conquered soils
Sit on aunty’s shelf.

Wide angle shots of youth
Senses undulated
Recalled house
On Blackglen Road
Fact, fiction, complicated.

Swarm misinformation
They watch Fox News at 2am
For laughs and conversation
Report divided nation
Whether here or there
We have a flare
For hyperbolic statement.

Deep state down
Not underground
It’s written on their faces
As they rile us up for ratings.

Those were times
In concealed fields
Fiery gorse and elevated
Now I’m here
Realising love
Is best given
Than when taken.

Sure
Hold on.

He grips the ball
I drop my phone.

II

Around this time of year we find ourselves with a little
more time to sort through things
Meaghan found a photo from 1978 when I was part of
another family of four
The photo was taken in Ardamine in County Wexford
Mum looks stunning
Dad looks thin
He is younger in that photo than I am now
The things we only glimpse as children often seem permanent
As if they have always been there
Like Dad’s truck yard.

But when I called my aunts to tell them about this picture
They told me today
That I went with them to the bank to get the loan for the yard
I was three
About the same age I was in that photograph
I thought it was always owned by our family
But nothing ever is

Always,
Nothing ever is always.