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Colum Sands
	Year:	1989
	Album:	THE MARCH DITCH
	Song:	The march ditch
Words & Music Colum Sands, Elm Grove Music Colum Sands: vocals, guitar, tin wistle, Ben Sands: mandoline, backing vocals
I seat beside the March Ditch when I was very small, I could hear the neighbours working in the field behind the wall, Farmers'children like ourselves, hungry mouths to feed, And Spring was calling from the soil, it's time to sow the seeds. I played beside the March Ditch when I was four or five, A thrush told all the neighbours it's good to be alive, The corn was shooting through the soil as we ran to and fro, And people working in the fields watched their children grow. I worked beside the March Ditch when I was nine or ten, Like the neighbours'children, home from school again, But if school days separated us because of differend creeds, Our orders now were all the same, it's time to pull the weeds. At seventeen the March Ditch heard me sing a song, Turning hay on both sides now, as the days were turning long, We had a break in August, their's was in July, But when one drop of rain would fall, we'd all look at the sky. I sat beside the March Ditch when I was twenty-five, My heart was feeling empty as the fields before my eyes, We'd heard it on the radio, another senseless death, But when it comes so close to home, it chills like winter's breath. I look across the March Ditch and every day I see, Someone on the other side who looks a lot like me, To share this earth between us, how long does it need, But Spring is calling from the soil, it's time to sow the seeds.