In memory of a mother
Today we remember Mary Maloney who died just over four weeks ago. Our thoughts go out to those attending her memorial service later this morning. In memory of a mother, then, who is very much missed, here is Patrick Kavanagh's moving tribute to his beloved, departed mother.
In memory of my mother
I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happilyGoing to second Mass on a summer Sunday —
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle' —
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life —
And I see us meeting at the end of a townOn a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is a harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us — eternally.Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
Born in Inniskeen, County Monaghan, Patrick Kavanagh was the son of a small farmer. He left school at thirteen, destined to work the "stony-grey soil" rather than write about it, but "I dabbled in verse," he said, "and it became my life." In 1936 his first book of verse, Ploughman and Other Poems, was published, and in 1938 he followed this up with The Green Fool, an autobiography. He spent the years of the Second World War in Dublin, where his epic poem The Great Hunger was published in 1942. Tarry Flynn, a novel about a small farmer who dreams of a life as a writer, appeared in 1948. When the Irish Times published a list of "'the nation's favourite poems" in 2000, ten of Patrick Kavanagh's works were in the first fifty.
