I wandered across the fields that day.
Until I came to what I thought was my own gate.
Two stout Ulster pillars. White, washed and phallic.
Standing before me and yet. Through the gate, on the other side
In the middle of the field. Stood people I recognised.
My grandparents. Four people, two couples.
Talking with my father. Past on, these twenty seven years.
Laughing now with Eva, Etta, Alec and Agnes.
Relations all, fresh across the soil to join him.
And though I thought this impossible I didn鈥檛 question reunion鈥檚 gift.
鈥淭here鈥檚 your next gate鈥 they indicated with a smile.
My father gave me a big hug. A warm embrace, so long needed.
Then let me go, his last Dandy-Lion seed.
To float and grow a little more.
My seed head spinning out in the breeze.
The next gate had no posts. But hung off two trees.
It rested and beckoned me cross. To move through time.
I clambered over and there, on the other side
Was a small crowd of people. My cold narrow field
Emerged through the morning mist.
Hazy, sun kissed, flowered and green.
Abundant with the seed of my ancestors.
For here they were. Gathered all, before me.
My narrow field. Narrow, almost boxed in my lifetime
Grew broad. Broader beyond belief
By seeing their existance. Through seven fields I walked that day.
Recognising faces I had never known.
For in them I saw my own face. Clasping the hands of those
Who knew not the custom. Yet amongst them I stood.
In the late afternoon I reached the eighth field
Their faces changing all the time to a darker hue.
The colour of their skin, the colour of their eyes.
Darkening as the sun sat lower in the sky.
Darkening, my ancestors. By now the field was so big
It seemed to have no boundaries. And my white, freckled, palette
Seemed an improbable canvas. I felt a mere daub, a wee squirt
Swimming from their ancientness. Their colours washing over me.
These dark smiling faces encircling me with their love.
People welcoming me.
Hugging me as my father had. I knew I was home now.
For this was my field. My only field. A field without walls.
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