A poem for September by Patrick Kavanagh

On an apple-ripe September morning 

Through the mist-chill fields I went 

With a pitch-fork on my shoulder 

Less for use than for devilment. 

The threshing mill was set-up, I knew, 

In Cassidy’s haggard last night, 

And we owed them a day at the threshing 

Since last year. O it was delight 

To be paying bills of laughter 

And chaffy gossip in kind 

With work thrown in to ballast 

The fantasy-soaring mind. 

As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered 

As I looked into the drain 

If ever a summer morning should find me 

Shovelling up eels again. 

And I thought of the wasps’ nest in the bank 

And how I got chased one day 

Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind, 

How I covered my face with hay. 

The wet leaves of the cocksfoot 

Polished my boots as I 

Went round by the glistening bog-holes 

Lost in unthinking joy. 

I’ll be carrying bags to-day, I mused, 

The best job at the mill 

With plenty of time to talk of our loves 

As we wait for the bags to fill. 

Maybe Mary might call round... 

And then I came to the haggard gate, 

And I knew as I entered that I had come 

Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.

Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) was an Irish poet who developed his talent under the mentorship of fellow Irish poet AE (George William Russell). Eschewing the sentimental and highly stylized approach to writing about rural life in Ireland which was popular at the time, Kavanagh wrote instead in a realistic diction about realistic subjects. His work later influenced Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, who shared an affinity with Kavanagh to write about the local and parochial to reveal the universal and timeless.