Quay Note

Currachs, like upturned whales beached

as musical notation on the quay.

Those sleek, mussel shelled torpedoes

ready to cleave though

wavewalls, green  and white-tipped,

chasing schools of quick-silver with

hand-strung nets tuned to their scales.

Rhythmic fingers conduct these vessels

in ancient songs that harmonise

with an underwater chorus,

carrying the music booming deep through the years,

where the call and response of the tides

meets the Blasket sound of memory.

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River Reflections

The sun gives a nudge waking the boy and dog

as the dog stretches the boy takes down the rod.

Through the garden, spring green with the sun

glinting from grassy dew, a globe in each drop

reflecting the passing of the boy and the dog.

Over the pitted tarmac, an imprint of every

sheep in Wicklow sheared down the side.

The boy over the gate, the dog jumps through,

onto a track untainted by wheels, dwindling down

to a youthful skittering stream.

Over the small stone bridge, the water under

as transparent as the achingly blue sky,

the gorse reflecting a blinding sun.

The boy treads carefully over soft bog,

light steps onto unsteady clumped reeds.

One false move and its into the cloying muck,

sucking deep, like quicksand on The Virginian.

The dog bounds ahead, stops, waits.

The track ends at the abandoned house

whose caved-in roof is an old person’s mouth.

Another gate to pass before green gives way to blue.

There is a poison on the land and

the rabbits, plagued with wide white eyes,

melt away from the dog. Arthritic limbs

carrying them deep into self-dug graves.

A fox watches, keen eyed, not enticed by

rotten food or scared of a small knight armed

with his lance and trusty mastiff.

The fox lollops off, tail erect ready to

brush off death under a hunter’s moon.

The boy and the dog both scent the water,

steps quicken, anticipating.

The boy baits the hook while the dog

watches, ears pricked ready for

the first splash into the river.

The man and the young boy with

careful steps over well-trod ground

The man lifts the boy over the lapsing gate.

No rabbits. No fox. No dog,

but the sheep encroach everywhere.

The young boy runs, each step a wave

over rocks as the stream gallops alongside

in full spate down to the river.

The young boy baits the hook,

casts into the still water at the river’s bend.

The man looks into the water

and sees, reflected back,

a boy and a dog.

Watching.

Waiting.

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A Time to Reflect

A Magpie Tales post.

Also submitted to Writers Island.

And to Thursday Poets Rally.

A Time to Reflect

A quick glance, backwards,

and a life is reflected.

Where an eye for regret

is stored in the gilt-edge

surround. The glass echoing

hopes long past, sundered, eclipsed

by shadows of lives not lived.

Where love almost lingered

but passed, etching layers

of guilt and memories inlaid

in wrinkles. And as I look again

that past life settles, like wind-blown

sand, on a present countenance.

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