Something About A Wood Fire Poem by Raymond Farrell

Something about a wood fire
Gives me a yearning desire
To go back to being ten
Happiness was everywhere then.

Winter holidays at grandparent's
Snow-shoeing through the fields
Eating homemade bread and jam
Washed down with hot chocolate
Huddled up to a raging fire
Coal oil lamps for light
Chamber pots, porcelain wash basins
And frosty air in the room each morning
I remember all this and more
With a feeling of melancholy.

A box of black and white photos
Helps recall their faces
But the most vivid image
Is one of two granite stones
Upright amid a tangle
Of grass, weeds, and orange lilies
In an unkempt village cemetery

So much pleasure in living
And it all comes to this.