Apricot Press

Undergrowth muffles
All sound,
Except
When ferns stretch,
And bluebells tickle
The toes of the trees.

And we walk there,
Talking out our muted day,
Small things glistering in us,
Peeking at the sun,
Like bluebells
In the underwood.

Every night, when I nest my head on my pillow,
I remember walking from the house in Rockfleet:
Across the stoned yard, the cattle grid at the gate.
Looking all the while at the still water of the inlet,
A stone’s throw, not twenty feet from my feet.

The narrow slope of the hill thins to the Atlantic.
Lush fields run to the woods and the spluttering river,
Choking water into the head of the sea’s reach.
Grainne Mhaol’s castle, fixed where sea licks the stones.
Four granite storeys biting hard into the centuries.

The swan and cygnet slip-by, like a touch of air,
Every day – come rain, come hail, come shine.
The road creases round between the water and the fields,
Barely wide enough for a car, a thread for the fishermen,
Who drive it twice or so every day to the small harbour.

Sheep graze easy, by a stone barn, by a single tall tree.
Wind speaks in the fence, sighs in the broken wall.
The fishermen, the swans, the sheep, the tower-house
Gather to me when I turn each night towards sleep:
Sifting my day back again to the quiet of Rockfleet.

Photo credit: Click and Learn Photography