It’s a day for the bog, said the farmer,

so we hitched battered trailer to tractor

and assembled the few able bodies.

 

He drove, of course, with two of us

in the bed of the trailer, and two

perched on a plank between mudguards.

 

We arrived through layered mist hanging,

waiting for the day’s warmth to melt it away,

and trudged up into the diggings.

 

A multitude of turf stooks lay there

above the sleán-scored edges,

laying out the arduous task before us.

 

We bent our backs to turning and restacking

sods not fully dried, lugging sacks of dry turves

to supplement the mound at the roadside.

 

Back and forth we slogged, muscles sapped

from sinking into ground that bled an oozing ichor

and hungered after footwear and feet alike.

 

Bending and picking, carrying and stacking

as the day lengthened and sun burned through,

growing the fruit of our labours at the road’s edge.

 

The last hour we spent filling the trailer

building a stable mountain so its passengers

would be able to cling to it on their way home.

 

Clouds gathered on the way, slowly darkening

to a chilling mizzle that leached the day’s heat

and chilled us as if the sun had never been.

 

Back at the farmhouse though, the day is not over.

All hands combined to transfer the trailer’s load

to the waiting space at the peat-stained gable end,

 

saving an armful to bring indoors where

the comforting glow and scent of burning peat

awaited amidst the anticipation of hot food.

 

 

NB 'sleán' (pronounced approximately 'shlan') is the Irish gaelic name for the specially-shaped spade used for cutting turf.