The long hangar of the turf shed
faces the Broad Road, where cars whine.
There our winter warmth is stored,
As all summer long the small carts
come lumbering down from
what we still call The Mountain:
High-packed cribs, painted sides & wheels,
a jangle of harness along narrow lanes,
as winkered Tim plods stolidly home.
II
There were three kinds of turf:
Rough heads, sliced only one turf deep,
with a tuft of heather on the top,
sentinels at the rear of the hearth,
The fums were long, light and dry.
They were first to start the fire,
kindling with immediate heat and light;
The boghole turf, deep and tobacco-dark,
burning as slowly as coat. Ash-smoored,
they smouldered, a ruddy glow, till morning.
III
When my cousins came in the summer
we played under the echoing roof.
Kings of the Castle, perched high
Atop our terraced, musty realm,
we inhaled that almost cathedral smell,
while pelting each other with dusty sods of turf.
IV
Ere long, the girdered hangar of the turf shed’s
corrugated iron would be hauled down, its ghost
Engulfed by the ever-widening Broad Road:
not horse, or pony-and-cart, but long-distance lorries,
Indifferent to dogs and infants, as they
barrel from Londonderry, through Omagh, to Belfast.