Setting:It is early evening in a small graveyard on the East Coast. A white picket fence bars autumn trees from the graves. Downstage right two gravestones stand facing the audience. Behind the stones a small oak repalesent in fall glory stands. Just left of center a fire pit is surrounded by large rocks. A plank rests on two rocks behind it, making a crude bench. The fire is burning low. Behind the bench is a giant of an oak.

At rise: Darragh is a thin, pale man in his mid twenties, dressed in a plane white lose shirt and simple black pants also lose and held up by a belt of Native American Beadwork and in his pants pocket is a gold watch connected to his belt with another strip of NA beadwork and leather. He is seated on the left tombstone watching the clouds. He speaks with a faint Irish brogue only noticeable when he begins to remember the past.

Darragh: (addressing the middle distance) You know mom, it seems like forever since dad brought me up to visit you. I know it's only been two years since he joined you here, but I miss him. For some reason I feel like he's gone completely, like I can't talk to him like I talk to you.
(Pauses, eyes searching the hills and skyline over the audience) It's a fair day today, the kind you like, just beginning to wake up from the rain, it's like the whole world it beginning anew.
I feel disconnected, mom, like I'm a thistle down tossed in a gale with no way of rooting myself and now it seems I'm to plunge into the ocean. They told me ma, (long pause). . . they told me the cancer has gotten to far. I'm going to join you soon. I'm not really too scared, not like dad was. I'm more scared I'm going to die without knowing where I came from, with out knowing what you taught me. I can't remember the stories anymore mom. I can't even remember your song. (Continues to search the audience, as if he would find the answer there.)

All I remember is that little man and his hammer, tapping away late at night. I can't even remember the tune. (Takes out gold watch and studies it, as if the words were engraved there) All I have of you is this. (soft laugh) it doesn't even work anymore. It stopped ticking the night you died.

(Spot light begins to dim on him as a misty light brightens on the other side of stage. The fire begins to burn brighter. Darragh's Mother a tall red hared woman slowly paces onto the stage, she is unclear in the soft light, like the memory she is. Darragh's Younger Self is a carefree young lad who dashes past her onto the stage and starts poking at the fire. Mother sits behind him and calls him to her lap.)

Darragh: I remember that fall when I turned eight you took me out camping. It was wonderful, the night was cool but the fire was bright and warm. I sat with you by the fire and we talked and laughed and sang songs. Then you gave me your father's gold watch. (Mother gives Younger the gold watch)
You told me . . . you told me. . . . (voice seems to fade away as does the spot light on Darragh)

Mother: This, my son, was my father's and before it was my father's it was his father's, now I want it to be yours. (she winds the watch) this is how you wind it. (wipes it with a rag) this is how you care for it.

Younger: (accepts the watch, eyes wide) Thank you Momma. I'll always take good care of it. But Mamma, why don't I ever see your father? I see papa's father all the time.

Mother: That's cuz your father doesn't live around here.

Younger: Where does he live Momma?

Mother: Back in Ireland.

Younger: What was it like, in Ireland?

Mother: It was beautiful, there were great stretches of green fields, with your grandfather's horses in them. I used to love to go riding out on them. (she pauses, imagining those fields) But that was long ago and far away, youngling, and it's time for you to go to bed.

(She picks Younger up and carries him to the side of the fire and lays him down. The fire begins to die and the spot light picks up on Darragh He is seated at the base of the grave stone leaning up against it. He lifts his hand to the watch and slowly begins to wind it. The audience can hear it begin to tick tick tick in a slow steady rhythm. Much like a heart beat, or a tiny hammer working on a tiny shoe.) Mother: (softly chanted to Younger as he settles in for the night.) Tip tap rip rap, make a lady's shoe. Up the airy mountain, down the rushing glen. Ye daren't go a hunting for fear of little men. Wee folk good folk trouping all together. Green jacket red cap 'n white owl's feather.
(she begins to sing softly)
In a shady nook one moonlit night
A leprechaun I spied
With a scarlet coat and a cap of green
and a koshkin by his side
(Darragh joins her softly)'Twas tick tack tick his hammer went
Upon a weenie shoe
Ach, I laughed when I though he was caught at last
But the wee man was laughing too

Diddi de diddi de diddi de diddi dum
Diddi de diddi de diddi day

(The lights begin to fade as the fire begins to die down. Darragh is slowly lying down and his voice to begins to fade)

As quick as a wink I caught the wee man
"Your pot of gold," I cried
"Me gold," says he, "Is in her hand,
that lady by your side,"
I turned to look ,
the wee man was off
Ach what was I to do
(Darragh's voice fades out completely, as
Mother
walks to his side of the stage, she gently pushes the hair from his face as she sings the last lines.)
and I laughed when I though what a fool I'd been
but the wee man was laughing too.

(Darragh looks up at Mother as the light over the two becomes misty)
Darragh: Mom?
Mother:(taking his hand) Sshush, child, it is time for you to come home.

(The spotlight fades as they exit left

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