Memory of My Father
By Patrick Kavanagh
Read by Declan O'Connor
Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.
That man I saw in Gardiner Street
Stumble on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.
And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London.
He too set me the riddle.
Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me
"I was once your father."
Credits
Directed by Matthew Thompson.
"Memory of My Father" by Patrick Kavanagh, from Collected Poems, edited by Antoinette Quinn (Allen Lane, 2004), is used by kind permission of the Trustees of the Estate of the late Katherine B. Kavanagh, through the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency.