Pool in the Bóithrín

Introduction

Somewhere along the bóithrín, after the rain has fallen and the world has quieted, a small pool forms where the water gathers still and clear. If you pause there long enough and closely, something gentle happens — the reflection looking back isn’t quite only yours anymore. It’s the boy who set out down this road with pockets full of dreams and no idea what the years would carry him through. And it’s the man who walked all those roads, who carried both the joy and the weariness, and kept going anyway.

We so often speak of our younger selves as if they’re gone — as if they never really left us at all? What if they are still walking right beside us, quiet and steady, waiting for us just to slow down enough to notice? Or that they live with us, like a memory that remains with us. This poem is that pause. It’s that moment of kindness between who we were and who we’ve become — remembering that it’s all one journey, all one soul, walking one road.

credit goes to ai image creation

Pool in the Bóithrín

He knelt where the rain had pooled in the lane,
still water reflecting a young face back —
eyes bright with roads not yet walked,
his days yet untouched by the weight of years.

His hair was still dark and his shoulders were strong.
No lines had been drawn where the sorrows would fall —
he carried the world like a hopeful new song,
with years stretching out and the days rolling on.

A breath stirred the water; the reflection swayed,
the young face grew faint as the years left their trace —
fine lines bore witness to all he had known,
the hands that had learned what it means to let go.

He touched the cold water; it trembled and shifted.
Neither one gone — one journey, one soul —
the boy didn’t vanish; the lantern still glowed,
that same light still lived in the man he’d become.

Weathered, gentle, and true,
he still carries dreams that the boy first knew.
One road, two travellers — neither apart,
they walked on, both young and old, at heart.

Copyright © 2026 Pat Fitzgerald
All Rights Reserved

A Brief Reflection

A week ago, I had an opportunity to listen to a song that struck me pretty deep. But for the life of me, I could not recall who it was from or what the song was called. It was of a man who mourned his younger days — he saw himself as young, feeling young. But the image that he saw in a mirror was an aged man looking back. This is where the idea of this poem came about and, with some playing about and much writing and editing, that poem came to be. But the story is slightly different to the actual song. We can mourn our youth when looking back as older folk, but true wisdom comes when one walks the road of life content with what life has brought you to this stage. Even with deep heart-felt losses in life, we can find a peace that settles much easier on a person.

A Word from the King

“The young man sees a thousand roads ahead; the old man sees the one that brought him home.”

Pat Fitzgerald — Poet

Your Thoughts

We can mourn our youth that passed us silently by. We can blame youth on being wasted on the young, and so on. But when we look back on our lives, we need to ask ourselves: Are we happy with the end result, given the roads travelled — some of which may have been less than desired — but where we are now, is it better than where it began? When we can walk life’s road with our younger selves hand in hand, as it were, alongside our more mature self, we should be more content with that result. Do you agree or disagree?