Together

We three sheltering
in an Irish rain,
my dear, a goat and I.
A perfect day
I would live again
if such a choice were mine.

Bridget Harwell

Portsalon

The strand at Portsalon is wide and curved.
Stony mountains, too bleak for goat or sheep, rise steeply from the sea.
Across the bay,
white houses trimmed in black
are stacked like dominoes on the rounded hills.
One of them is his.

He steps back from the lapping water.
He has always been afraid of things beneath the sea.
Fishy eyes and foreign faces.
Thin as a cricket he could be caught up
and crunched in a bite.
He shivers in his woolens.
In place of sun, a day moon floats in the sky.

The sand beneath his feet is bumpy
hieroglyphics cut by rivulets ...
or the stylus of some ancient god.
He doubts he'll take this walk again
though he has known it all his life.
Too many odd thoughts fill his head
and the road back is steep.

Bridget Harwell