Decade Poem by Seamus Hogan

Until I was nine or ten
I don't remember any other cares
Than getting the lessons done in time
To play a little more before the prayers.
Though, some nights, in the half moon,
Around the fire, of personalised chairs,
Between the mysteries, the pinching, the faces
and smirks, I'd be half half aware
It was because of another world
That we were kneeling there
Bums to the heat.
Many's the time since then
I've prayed, without smiling,
For a heaven just like those nights
When the Rosary was said.