[Carl Copeland]

David, I love lines 3-5, but I’ll enjoy it all more after I’ve completed my research. My latest find is:

“Haggard n (Agriculture) (in Ireland and the Isle of Man) an enclosure beside a farmhouse in which crops are stored”

I also love “Little Muddy, Tiny Reekie”—apparently nicknames for the midden—and the omphalos, which, though I had to refresh my memory, is a word worth knowing (the pictures I found look so much like Hindu lingams!). Was your midden a mound, though? The story about your sister makes it sound more like a bed of quicksand.

I don’t get the last line.

[Joe Crocker]

Lots of argument in our family about when a compost heap becomes a midden. Grass, weeds and leaves obviously go in the compost heap, but what about potato peelings, rotten fruit, plate-scrapings, gone-off meat and dairy? The further down the list the more like a midden it becomes, the pongier the smell, and the happier the rats will be. I guess, this being a farm, your midden was a much more serious affair.

I really liked the last line, emphasising its undeniable, unmistakable, confident self.

[Roger Slater]

I learned several new words in my successful quest to enjoy the poem, though I haven't been able to find a definition for "abertyre" in all of Googledom. Still, I enjoyed the poem and learning the new words.

[RCL]

Terrific, David!

Related to abertyre?

abattoir (n.)
"slaughterhouse for cows," 1820, from French abattre in its literal sense "to beat down, knock down, slaughter" (see abate) + suffix -oir, corresponding to Latin -orium, indicating "place where" (see -ory).

[John Riley]

David, another one of your neat and charming poems. Well done. I like learning the words.

[Jim Moonan]

.
It's an earthy nugget of a poem that I have a hunch will find its rightful place in Manx literature/culture for eons to come.

As has been said before elsewhere, you could start the poem with line 3 but then you'd lose its neat division into quatrains. Also lost would be your signature way of easing into a poem...
On the other hand, you could do away with the stanza breaks all together and make it one big pile — a midden. And center it on the page, omphalos-like.

This line: "It snored in the middle of our farm." is amazing. I wonder, though, if repeating it verbatim in S4 takes away for its appearance in S1.

Question: are middens simply a dumping place for organic refuse and for no other purpose? I'm assuming a midden is not a "compost pile" like we have in the States typically used as fertilizer for the garden.


It's a beauty in the eye of this beholder.

.

[Roger Slater]

Jim, I recommend this article on middens in Wikepedia.