Perfume of the soil Sitting on footpaths in Temple Bar on pebbled stones at the Royal Hospital in bare feet on Lough Derg lying on the ground at Fleadhs, I see young people in black clothes making contact with the earth from carpeted homes centrally heated taken to school in buses and cars now yearning for nature and the smell of the cosmos soil. In the fifties we walked to school barefooted along the grass verges of the stony roads played on the cracked concrete of the school yard. Poulticed stone bruises on our feet stopped bleeding glass cuts with cobwebs from the farmyard sat on clay ridges guggering potato slits in the spring rolled with hay laps in summer months tossed with the oat seed as it came out in torrents from the thresher. Came home with wet clothes from cycling to the store and smelled the tweeds drying on the kitchen hearth keeping us in touch with the crust of the universe. Mary Guckian

Ballsbridge Wood I parked my car beneath the trees that lined the land behind the library. Here, I watched the seasons change from bare branches to full blown buds, opening out to shimmering leaves before they turned from sombre yellow to burnished bronze. Now red bricked houses stand silent since the developers bored into the earth with diggers, clearing away the brambles, trees and all the foliage of a thousand years, no place for blackberries, the fruit I loved to taste on my lunch hour feast of air. Christening this pile Ballsbridge Wood, estate agents remind us of the beauty of a suburb lane. Mary Guckian

THE DEPTH OF BREAD Did I tell you how I once set down my poet's pen and stood in a soup line? She knows I did this. The one who stood in front of me, patient while I scoured her neck and spine with mindful meditations about my kinship with the poor. It was - and you must understand this part - a noble hour for me. Waiting. As she was waiting. For food. Becoming like her. Becoming more and more like her. That was the noblest part. Wouldn't you agree? That, and the fact that I had fasted all day. My stomach. Churning and growling behind her back. Holy. Holy. Holy. My stomach. Announcing this - the good news of my sacrifice - to the one who stood in front of me, still patient. What made her turn? I cannot say. First, she shrugged her shoulders (or was it a shiver?). Then slowly, ever so slowly, she turned a full turn and faced me, silently,unhinged eyes meeting eyes. This part I will never forget: How in her hungry stare I saw the shallow mockery of starvation and the depth of bread. I tell you these things with my poet's pen while I sit here remembering her silence and the rusty sound of my soul coming in a soup line Toni Flynn

The Traveller's Tent Down at the crossroads, in the winter months on my way to school: I would cycle past the travellers and watch the steam rise from the dark brown dusky tent. It was tiny, shaped like the last quarter of the moon. For many years a family lived here quietly mended our buckets and made pongers in different sizes. We would exchange vegetables and milk for the useful goods they provided for us in simple designs, these vessels were crafted with a skill none of us knew. Sleeping under the canvas through all kinds of weather, wakening after heavy rain to find the sagging canvas sinking into the tiny space, the only heat the closely held bodies of the family. Mary Guckian

Homeboy At birth, taken from his Mother, reared in the County Home. At 14 years left with strangers on a farm, no time for education, a life of slavery, abused by farming men and women. Growing old in his youth, sleeping in the loft, cattle giving heat to his tired body night after night. Backache from manual work and wettings, working at every job he was given. The farmers he slaved for know nothing of his whereabouts. At last a holiday one week paid by the St. Vincent de Paul, time to form female companionship, he is overcome with emotion when he is given a book as a present and a woman asks for his address, never getting a card at Christmas this old man seems cared for and happy in Knock. Mary Guckian

Ironing Years of ironing starched shirt collars for my Father and aprons that we wore for the cookery class in school had given a polished surface to the clothes iron. The end opened like the lid of a box and out came the large stone which we buried in the centre of the open fire until it turned a pink red colour like a slab of jelly. With the tongs we lifted the dangerously hot stone from the fire transferred it to the iron and started working on the clothes, getting rid of the creases as we moved it over and back on the garments. To keep it hot the stone was put back into the fire every fifteen minutes until all the clothes needed for the seven of us were neatly ironed for the week by my Mother. Mary Guckian

Autumn in Oxford Walking into the meadows we wandered across the steep bridge and watched the students rowing. The narrow boats moved smoothly under the tall trees and the oars glided gracefully on the river, as the instructor called out, from time to time. Keeping their movements in tune with nature, they floated into the landscape and we moved further into the rich carpet. Rattling sounds filled our ears, the burnished leaves falling gently at our feet, our time together evaporating. Years later, the memories stirring in the landscape of our drawn out silences. Mary Guckian