Con Durham, a man full of talent, gentleness and love.
I met and played trad music with him in Daingean ui Chuis.
RIP, angel of music.
The Smell of Ireland
by A.R. Carter
When I first
landed there, I noticed the smell;
an odd acrid
tang, not unpleasant at all.
New to that
place I wondered about it,
and after
years couldn’t recall
what life’s like
without it.
It’s turf-grates
and oak,
Bord na Mona’s
thick smoke,
vinegar, sausage
and chips.
Dettol and
paint, and on feet of a saint
beeswax
sweet, and the spice of incense.
The harbour’s
rotten hemp rope,
and the lavender
soap
on old
ladies sitting at mass.
The cough of
the bus
with a
tourist-full truss
wearing too
much cologne
as they
pass.
St. James’s
Gate stinks of burnt barley malt
with relief
found in Howth and its air full of salt.
Botanical
treasures await in Glasnevin,
the breath
of woodbine heaves its own special heaven.
Steaming
tarmac, gooey and black,
is mixed in with
cow-pats and green.
Mussels in
sand, and the smell of a land
of stone
walls and fresh CarraghÃn.
Silage and
stink on February dirt,
blackberries
rotten on vines;
bacon and
eggs with rich soda bread,
the deep
quiet stands of white pines.
Black tar on
canvas of curraghs tied down,
the trawlers’
old engine oil,
damp woolen
jumpers of men worked to the bone
that smell
of tobacco and toil.
The smell of a nation, the dirt-smell of spud,
crimped on the coastline by seaweed and mud.
I didn’t hear jays or the mockingbird’s song,
and when all was right, a piece was still wrong.
Nights caught me off as I gazed on the thickets.
They were velvety
deep, with no chirping of crickets.
I imagined them all, and then I recalled,
wood stoves
on a morning’s cold hickory pall,
fried
country ham on the first day of autumn,
cinnamon,
walnut, molasses and pumpkin,
sumac and
honeysuckle on a deep summer evening,
cornbread,
and Lysol, and homemade fried chicken.
Mom’s cotton
quilts kept in old cedar chests,
the whirr of
cicadas, the razzing of locusts,
and peeking
through snow,
the first
purple spring crocus.
Then I
remembered what I loved about home.
So I’d think
of Nashville,
and pick up
the phone.
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