Hermes Drops by for a Cuppa
God of twilight, God of wind,
please help me on my way,
at the next cross, down this hill,
don't let the brakes fail now,
the church up top, the graveyard way below,
Oh You who makes the sky go clear,
Take care of us on Cléire.
No, please, don't fuddle me hey
You've shifted out of low
& into landscape,
Hermes become the patchwork pastures of this isle
in morning light, the shimmer, the shrinking shadows of walls,
Oh You who makes the sky go clear,
Take care of us on Cléire.
Yes, Sir, Yes,
I confess
that in the midst of the slurry
I could smell my own fart
but You, great Chuckler, You within the midst of what I see,
You the very topography,
the swallow swooping inches above the lane,
the sea spraying headlands, sending scud
onto sea pinks, rag wort & broccoli alike,
You the Neolithic knoll, You the mouth to the cave of seals,
everywhere I look, You,
God of games of chance,
Oh You who makes the sky go clear,
Take care of us on Cléire.
Sit down, Sir, do, have a cuppa
tea, a scone, some homemade blackberry jam,
before You blow the curtains
by the sick bed, ease pain, the going,
the final farmer fisherman housewife sweat,
the lung collapse, that one last blast
of breath, please,
Oh You who makes the sky go clear,
Take care of us on Cléire.
Fastnet Conversion
Out fishing past the Fastnet
I glanced to starboard where,
below the cumulonimbus
and framed between
the Lighthouse and me,
sailed such sudden
purity of yacht
seascape turned into painting,
me into peace,
and a Galway hooker
into a red-sailed hint
of the worth of being on board.
Sister Skellig
Now I know sort of why
the monks did it,
hunkering down on that God-unforsaken outpost
of an Atlantic isle.
They didn't simply keep
turning the other cheek
alive.
In howling wind
I hear them sing,
we're all we've got
so on we go.
Now a beehive hut in a butterfly world
perched on the edge
of heritage
tells blow-in me not mainly of hardship
but of a wildly simplifying place, gull eggs,
pollock feathered from jagged ledge,
warmth the others in the hut,
a day-time look-out & boulders ready
heavens above the single narrow path.
In howling wind
I hear them sing,
we're all we've got
so on we go.
Here on Cape, here on this sister isle,
in a practically unrelated time,
this is the way
it should be:
Force 12 & the roof poised & so what,
mail delivered straight
to the living room table when we're not home,
keys left in car, a sea pink
swaying in a child's eagle eye,
intimacy with rambunctious Mother Nature
as existential as full flame
under fish-filled frying pan.
When I need help, or a neighbour mine,
that's it, off we go,
straight as the evening flight of a hooded crow.
In howling wind
I hear them sing,
we're all we've got
so on we go.
Island Stone
Once in close shooting lobster pots
he spied a seam of stone straight as a plumb
line,
straight as the gables of the houses
that he builds. He told me where so I
drove the tractor down to the sea,
to Tradoonclayreh,
& found the rock: orange, red, gray, a hard
true sandstone falling north.
With the five-foot bar
we quarried stone, eight tons of
sharp edged warm face
that stays where it's put
on wet dark beds of cement.
We built a house with stone
we had badgered out of stone at the edge
of the sea.
He taught me not walls but foundations.
Little Limpet Says
A scientist friend
assures me when
hurricane waves
hit shore,
they've the savage effects
of a wind of 900 miles
per hour.
You little limpets,
you mussels
and mermaid's hair,
how do you hang in there
when the Druid's oak
would vanish like smoke
and I would die
with the scare?
What, little limpet?
Wisdom's hidden
in waves?
To hunker down's
to withstand,
to stand up's
to be crowbait, you say?
Little limpet, please cling
to the shore
of my heart
when the next hurricane hits.
Signpost
At the foot of the lane
a white arrow aims
up to an island farm.
Beneath the shaft hangs
a sign that proclaims
in swirls of red alarm:
"WARNING"
Beneath it,
in very fine print,
comes the critical bite:
"Proceed at your own delight".