BALLYNAHOWN, GALWAY

Rock walls – many, many rock walls,
low lying rock walls everywhere,
parceling out the land,
all along the up and down, twisting and turning, dirt roads.
I took notice of the yellow green stains in the stones.
Time and weather pockmarks everything,
including the faces peeking out at us
from curtained cottage windows,
“Probably American tourists checking out their roots.”
Our Aunt Nora was taking us down to see our ancestors
in the little cemetery right at the edge of the sea.
Standing there with my two sisters, Peggy and Mary,
my Aunt Nora, my brother-in-law, Jerry,
I was listening to the moaning cows, the wind,
the lapping and clapping of the grey sea.
I was looking at the ever, forever background
of Ballynahown. I began wondering,
“Did mom and dad stand here many years ago,
looking at the cemetery stones, the rock walled pastures,
the dirt roads, and then turn and look to the sea,

dreaming of having a family, us, another life,

on the other side of this rocky, rugged coast?"

© Andy Costello, Poems, 2007

Picture taken by Mary Connolly

in September 1999,

West Coast of Ireland,

right where my parents were born.