I Could Read The Sky

"The well in the long field. Matt says there’s a fish in it will tell you how your relations are doing in America."

It’s the Feast of St. Patrick. No work from me today. Read this instead.

If I’m not mistaken I took this photograph in the vicinity of Portmagee, “where there is hardly a house that has evaded the wounds brought about by emigration.”

What I could do.

I could mend nets. Thatch a roof. Build stairs. Make a basket from reeds. Splint the leg of a cow. Cut turf. Build a wall.

Go three rounds with Joe in the ring Da put up in the barn. I could dance sets. Read the sky. Make a barrel for mackerel. Mend roads. Make a boat.

Stuff a saddle. Put a wheel on a cart. Strike a deal. Make a field. Work the swarth turner, the float and the thresher. I could read the sea.

Shoot straight. Make a shoe. Shear sheep. Remember poems. Set potatoes. Plough and harrow. Read the wind. Tend bees. Bind wyndes. Make a coffin.

Take a drink. I could frighten you with stories. I knew the song to sing to a cow when milking.

I could play twenty-seven tunes on my accordion.

 What I couldn’t do.

Eat a meal lacking potatoes. Trust banks. Wear a watch. Ask a woman to go for a walk. Work with drains or with objects smaller than a nail.

Drive a motor car. Eat tomatoes. Remember the routes of buses. Wear a collar in comfort. Win at cards. Acknowledge the Queen. Abide loud voices.

Perform the manners of greeting and leaving. Save money. Take pleasure in work carried out in a factory. Drink coffee. Look into a wound. Follow cricket.

Understand the speech of a man from West Kerry. Wear boots or shoes made from rubber. Best PJ in an argument. Speak with men wearing collars.

Stay afloat in water. Understand their jokes. Face the dentist. Kill a Sunday.

Stop remembering.

- From the novel I Could Read The Sky, by Timothy O’Grady. For the love of God buy this book.