Few had paintings in those days
My grandparents had just the one
Prior to viewing it
I first took the silver torch
From the doily on the sideboard
Beside the nut-brown wireless
With glimpses of glowing valves
Promising, but not delivering
Hilversum and Saarbrücken
Shone its beam out down the yard
Where the wood-rimmed hole awaited me
And the twenty-foot drop to the drain appalled
Brushed my teeth in the Belfast sink
Then off and away up the steep stairs
To the cold and concave feather mattress
And the numinous, eponymous dale
Framed on the shadowy farther wall
Where parents would later sleep
A valley, some weary travellers
Some watery purple hills
Cattle and horses
A long and winding way
And the words
By Road – Uniondale
And the adults all laughing below
Around the ancient television
It’s clear as a bell over the tops
My grandfather would declare
Over his morning pint of tannic tea
His cotton sheets beset
With scorch-rimmed Woodbine holes
I fancied then the dale lay out beyond those quarried hills
Be as it may, they never spoke of Uniondale
And, to be honest, I’m glad I never asked
Blackthorn 