THE LONG GARDEN It was the garden of the golden apples, A long garden between a railway and a road, In the sow's rooting where the hen scratches We dipped our fingers in the pockets of God. In the thistly hedge old boots were flying sandals By which we travelled through the childhood skies, Old buckets rusty-holed with half-hung handles Were drums to play when old men married wives. The pole that lifted the clothes-line in the middle Was the flag-pole on a prince's palace when We looked at it through fingers crossed to riddle In evening sunlight miracles for men. It was the garden of the golden apples, And when the Carrick train went by we knew That we could never die till something happened Like wishing for a fruit that never grew. Or wanting to be up on Candle-fort Above the village with its shops and mill. The racing cyclists' gasp-gapped reports Hinted of pubs where life can drink his fill. And when the sun went down into Drumcatton And the New Moon by its little finger swung >From the telegraph wires, we knew how God had happened And what the blackbird in the whitethorn sang. It was the garden of the golden apples, The half-way house where we had stopped a day Before we took the west road to Drumcatton Where the sun was always setting on the play. -- Patrick Kavanagh