To A Couple Of Poets Poem by Liam ó Comáin

(John Montague & Seamus Heaney)

*As the oak lies in the acorn so
poetry comes from everyday life*

You showed me that poetry lay
In the soil and the smell of slurry,
The hayrick and the competitive
Spirit of a gaelic match.

I was inclined to look for it elsewhere
But through your art I met the Muse
In the streets of Derry and the Fair
At Ballycastle...

She drank with me in a Limavady pub
And swam the cove across from
Mullaghmore as July rain peppered
The sea birds.

An elusive maiden but one to be wooed
With persistence in consort with a
Nurtured awareness of ones milieu.

I thank you.

So dig fellow poets among the pigeoners,
The potato gatherers, or whatever life bestows.