Our Eden

 

At long last, years ago,

 

we’d made our house a home;

 

my North-facing patch is cool,

 

and only catches sunlight

 

for a few hours in the morning,

 

with a glow towards the evening.

 

Her patch, South-facing, hot

 

as a Mediterranean vineyard,

 

sloped steeply, needing steps,

 

which I built with my own two hands,

 

using cobbles salvaged from

 

the street behind our house.

 

Two-hundred-year-old homes

 

stood there, but now are gone;

 

past them, the workers’ clogs

                             

would’ve clattered along each day

 

towards their daily grind.

 

Today, her patch, in bloom,

 

is the prettiest in the street,

 

it sports a little bird bath;

 

and mine? it has two ponds,

 

where butterflies and birds

 

and bees may drink at ease,

 

where a scented climbing rose,

 

God’s gift to passers-by,

 

is reaching for the sky.

 

Le Uilleam Ó Ceallaigh,

Dé Domnaigh, an naoú lá de mhí Lúnasa,

an bhliain dhá mhíle is fiche a sé (9/8/2026).