A CHILDHOOD CHRISTMAS       Patrick Kavanagh

My father played the melodeon
Outside at our gate;
There were stars in the morning east
And they danced to his music

Across the wild bogs his melodeon called
To Lennons and Callans.
As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry
I knew some strange thing had happened

Outside in the cow-house my mother
Made the music of milking
The light of her stable lamp was a star
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle

A water-hen screeched in the bog,
Mass going feet
Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot holes,
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel

An old man passing said;
"Can't he make it talk" --
The melodeon. I hid in a doorway
And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat

I nicked six nicks on the door-post
With my penknife's big blade --
There was a little one for cutting tobacco
And I was six Christmases of age

My father played the melodeon
My mother milked the cows
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary's blouse