Sunday, March 21, 2010

GLENCOLUMBCILLE

Waves resound at the edge
            of sky and ocean’s
                        great expanse

braced for the dark gather of clouds
            pressing from south
                        of where he stands,
 as if at watch, on the treeless bog
           
            The person
                        who is his own ancestor
imagines voyaging
            from the known to the unknown
                        through a storm shroud,
            muscling hope out of promise

                        Rain puddles splatter
his loss of sight, sounds coming forward 
            like revelers
up narrow streets, past the house
                        close to the road

            The strange visages
that take momentary shapes
                        are familiar
the way a mirrored gaze
at a wash basin
            will sometimes stare past
                       the cliff's premonition

He could leave
                        the sheep
            grazed hillside,
the white sand beach,
            and the sweet burning peat

            walk back
through the tiny village
                          past the general store

until patches of blue 
                        push open the sky 
            and a rainbow arches up
                        lightening the rain

A person finds himself
            in both departure
                        and return
where the sea is a fallen down ladder
                       

2 comments:

  1. i like this one alot. there are some great images here. i need to think about it some more to undertsnad it more fully.
    i especially like the notions of pas and, ancestry; i really ike the last line, which calls toward the fragility of time and memory.

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  2. Thanks, Elaine. This is the first poem I've written which is in some sense "about Ireland" since my visit there almost ten years ago. - Chico

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