Slipping into Autumn

Do not lament but hold your chilled cheeks high.
The frozen finger’s crooked but holds no threat.
Embrace the fiery promise in the sky.

Observe the ochre-tinged confetti fly,
Cast down from fingers blacked in silhouette.
Do not lament but hold your chilled cheeks high.

The spirit’s eye is arched. It wonders why
Great Samhain’s robes are stained with dull regret.
Embrace the fiery promise in the sky.

The greatest book is senseless to the eye
When stripped of part of life’s great alphabet.
Do not lament but hold your chilled cheeks high.

Oh blesséd time – your frozen waters lie
To stay the hand that wields both rod and net.
Embrace the fiery promise in the sky.

The busy wren does not curl up and sigh
When frosted earth demands new etiquette.
Do not lament but hold your chilled cheeks high.
Embrace the fiery promise in the sky.

Entombed in snow the shoot still seeks the sun

Entombed in snow the shoot still seeks the sun,
Although it never felt its soft caress.
And thus the plot of winter is undone.

Though dark may be the shadow of the gun
And broken bodies quickly acquiesce,
Entombed in snow the shoot still seeks the sun.

Imprisoned Alpine streams in springtime run
With playful bounds not shackles of distress
And thus the plot of winter is undone.

And still the ropes of tyranny are spun
By those whose fingers blister to oppress.
Entombed in snow the shoot still seeks the sun.

Seek out the light, for even where there’s none,
A distant star will somewhere phosphoresce
And thus the plot of winter is undone.

Each dawning is a battle bravely won.
Tradition never guaranteed success.
Entombed in snow the shoot still seeks the sun
And thus the plot of winter is undone.

Tory Island ferry

Báidín Fheilimí, d'imigh go Toraí, báidín Fheilimí is Feilimí ann,

Báidín Fheilimí, d'imigh go Toraí, báidín Fheilimí is Feilimí ann.

Báidín Fheilimí, briseadh i dToraí, báidín Fheilimí is Feilimí ann,

Báidín Fheilimí, briseadh i dToraí Fheilimí is Feilimí ann.

Pitching through the growling tide,
Spies the tiny craft the light
That drops and rises like a star
On speed.

Like a gannet, half-concussed,
Returning to her rocky ledge
Where squawking chicks are huddled in
Their need.

Desp’rate struggle, yet her pledge
Will drive her on through ice shards thin.
For the young, the journey must
Succeed.

Next season, she might well decide
The cliffs that fall from Foreland’s spar
May prove to be a safer site
To breed.

The heron

A scattering of hares
And foolish rabbits, dun
Fur pinballed in sudden light.
Which way to run

As the blinding truck glares?
Snap decisions. Fur congeals
In the black imprint
Of too-recent wheels.

But beware the stranger!
Grey waistcoat, he blinks,
Frozen for a second
In the spotlight. He thinks

He’s in no danger
In the shadows. Is his dish
Now hare and foolish
Rabbit and not fish?

Dolphin watching

The black triangle slices
Through the concrete waves,
Like a prisoner
Sawing his way to freedom.
A flash of black back,
Rubbery and sleek.

Above in an alien world,
We patrol the light,
Pointing and clicking
And laying hands
On young shoulders,
Watching for a dark form
To break the cell roof.

Or are they the wardens of the deep,
On watch, lest those strange upside-down shapes
Crash through their crystalled palace?

On Rathlin Island

The merest headflick is effusive greeting.
Stoic faces carved by wind and tide.
O’er the heather, windswept lambs are bleating.
O’er the sound, the mainland stretches wide.

Eyeless houses stare down to the pier.
Rope lays coiled beside a peeling wall.
O’er the hill, the old light, bright and clear,
Proudly bathes the island’s purple shawl.

Mist rolls in like one grey canvas awning.
A stout man hauls an old boat up the beach.
The harbour will be quiet until morning,
Save for just an errant seagull’s screech.

No lights gleam from the mainland. No stars glisten.
The crashing sea, the island’s rasping breath.
Old men cock their heads aside to listen.
Women fear the grasping hand of death.

Capel Island, county Cork

A stump. That’s all there is. No more.
A nippled breast that rises
From the fathomless domains,
While loud gulls in many sizes
Skim like paper aeroplanes.
A stump. That’s all there is. From shore,
She bears her breastbone proudly,
Unabashed and unashamed,
While around her, waves crash loudly
As the sky becomes inflamed.
A stump.
That’s all there is.
No more.

All that exists on Capel Island is the unfinished trunk of a lighthouse abandoned in the 1840s