Anam Cara

MOUNTAIN-LOOKING

For the Burren Action Group

who saved Mullach Mór

The mountain waits for no one

But rises on its own to overlook

The blind spread of fields and

The local pride of trees adept

At the art of singular ascent.

The lakes which stay in place,

Somehow held up by the threaded

Resolve of the bog that rusts the water

Until it takes dark for depth.

The grey certainty of the stones,

Stained yellow with moss and lichen,

Who serve as sentinels among the bushes,

Alert for the whisper of the ice

That will return to retrieve them

In white nests from the loose air.

And the earth-orphans

In their strong homes

That light up at night

On sealed ground

Where they shelter from

The seamless totality of the dark

Claiming all the spaces of separation.

Watched by animals,

They emerge at daytime;

No surface here

Could wear frowns

Like these faces.

Their limbs and eyes

Blurred with desire,

They climb up sometimes

Hoping, maybe,

To see what the summit sees.