THE CINDER PATH We loved to walk on the cinder path and push the burnt- out coals into the earth, my father shovelling the cinders from the heap at the creamery after he had spilled the fresh milk into big vats, filling the can again with skim milk used for baking soda bread and the remainder poured into the trough for the two pigs and buckets for the young calves. The cinders were heaved off the cart in the back of the Garden Field that led to the Square Meadow and on to Kilmadderoe Lake where the cattle plunged in to keep cool in the summer time. The cinders created a dry walk in the winter time, when the fields got wet and mucky, helping to shape the path, as we pounded on the soft stones, crunching them back into the clay, recycling the remains from the boiler house at Kiltoghert Co-op. -- Mary Guckian, "Extended Wings 2, New Poetry and Prose by Rathmines Writers," Swan Press, Dublin (1994)