THE COT Scythe and axe and hedge-clippers, the shriek Of the gate the children used to swing on, Poker, scuttle, tongs, a gravel rake -- The old activity starts up again But starts up differently. We're on our own Years later in the same "locus amoenus," Tenants no longer, but in full possession Of an emptied house and whatever keeps between us. Which must be more than keepsakes, even though The child's cot's back in place where Catherine Woke in the dawn and answered "doodle doo" To the rooster in the farm across the road -- And it is the same cot I myself slept in When the whole world was a farm that eked and crowed. -- Seamus Heaney, born Derry 1939