What the Soul Sees upon Leaving
McCarthy Castle beckoning from the far end
of Ballinskelligs Beach, baton finger stretching
from its stony surviving peak, dawn baptism descending
in the drench of drizzled gust, the dew of a thousand journeys
perched, diamond drop, on genuflecting rush, the pull to ground
of crystalline tear too inevitable to resist, the ruckus of grumbling gravel
rinsed by rigorous seaward surf, a mother running soapy cloth
o’er a muddied toddler cheek, face upturned, untroubled as a strand
scoured high-tide clean, cormorant wing-tip skimming, score-dropping
minims on infinite sheet, the eyes of a thousand darting lives
quivering just beneath, a shock of seagulls keening landward, looping
hymns of common grief, the mournful low of a swollen cow, delivering
clear exchange, imploring of the morning pall to free
the night-enslaved, and then, an aproned mother at a clothesline
born of twine, strung from a soot stained gable to a cross
of mossied pine, fervent child thrown at her feet, awaiting
God’s command, plucking early
daisy heads, proffered
with tiny hand.