INNOCENCE

They laughed at one I loved

– The triangular hill that hung Under the Big Forth.

They said That I was bounded by the whitethorn hedges

Of the little farm and did not know the world.

But I knew that love’s doorway to life

Is the same doorway everywhere.

Ashamed of what I loved I flung her from me and called her a ditch

Although she was smiling at me with violets.

But now I am back in her briary arms;

The dew of an Indian Summer morning lies

On bleached potato-stalks – What age am I?

I do not know what age I am, I am no mortal age;

I know nothing of women,

Nothing of cities,

I cannot die Unless I walk outside these whitethorn hedges.

-Patrick Kavanagh

Copyright © Estate of Katherine Kavanagh