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Blue Cards
Winter mornings he was gone before dawn
to fairs in Ballyhaunis, Claremorris, Ballinrobe.
He came home with muck on his coat,
smelling of Shorthorns and Herefords.
Sometimes he told us who he’d met,
the blind man who knew each of his cows
by their lowing, the widow who bargained
harder than any dealer. But mostly he sat
distracted by prices, cigarette smoke
spiraling to the kitchen ceiling, blue cards
spread around the table. Today, when everyone
else was away, I wrapped him warm,
pushed his wheelchair through the haggard,
up the yard to the sheds. The cattle lifted
doleful eyes from heaps of silage.
Hello lads, he said.
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Jane Clarke is the author of two poetry collections, The River and When the Tree Falls, as well as an illustrated chapbook, All the Way Home, (Smith|Doorstop 2019). Jane’s awards include the 2016 Hennessy Literary Award for Poetry and the 2016 Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year. Originally from a farm in Co. Roscommon, Jane now lives with her wife in Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. [“Blue Cards” is from Where the Tree Falls, published by Bloodaxe Books, 2015 & 2019; a blue card is a bovine animal passport.]
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Frank McElvey (1895–1974), Fair Day. Oil on canvas.