Things I Like.

Cowpats and daisies, frogspawn and dew,

Reasons and roses and girls dressed in blue.

Robins and Redbreast and pints of brown stout,

Living in sin and loving in doubt.

Tree-leaves and tea-leaves and tinkers and turf,

Pale-bellied trout and sea-shapes in surf.

Dreamers and schemers and jeans on a bike,

These are just some of the things that I like.

Dry days, July days, penumbral pale moon

Yellow and mellow and humming in tune,

Bacon and duck-egg and Avie’s brown bread

Yearns and yarns, inside and instead.

Crack and conniving and playing the game

And someone I care for feeling the same.

Potting the black and hooking the pike,

These are some more of the things that I like.

Black and white movies, an Irish grand slam,

Black pudding and white and gooseberry jam.

Rovers and ravers and losers, who try,

Stories by Steinbeck and hard men who cry,

Glances with meaning, two or three friends

Living, forgiving, means without ends.

Clearing the air and boosting the psyche,

Remembering more of the things that I like.

People and steeples and streets that are clean,

Irish and music and anything green.

Mountains and fountains and fervour in fight

And shifting the barrier blocking my sight.

Fire and freedom and freaks who believe

Three absent friends and lovers who grieve

Guts and compassion and having a ball,

These are the things that I like most of all.

Dedicated to Avie, the best neighbour in the world.