On distant fields where furrows lie,

And corn and oats and wheat are high

As meadows green, and cocks of hay

Where horses sleep and children play;

Where men build ditches, and walls of stones

And others pray for buried bones;

Where cows have worn their milking trails

when morning calls and sunshine pales.

I used to walk through fields of green

And jump the ditches in between;

While going towards a trout filled stream

Observing threshers belching steam;

Rolling through the lush green grass

Where rabbits, hares and foxes pass

On daily trips for daily meals

Which every distant field conceals.

Yet elsewhere there are barren lands

Which no one truly understands;

The sight of sand, and scrub and brush,

An oasis, tree or single bush;

Not for them what Irish nature yields,

The verdant beauty of distant fields.

—–Brendan Martin ©

Sunday 23/04/1995