Anam Cara

Conamara in Our Mind

It gave us

the hungry landscapes,

resting upon

the unalleviated

bog-dream,

put us out

there, where

tenderness never settled,

except for the odd nest

of grouse mutterings

in the grieving rushes,

washed our eyes

in the glories of light.

In an instant

the whole place flares

in a glaze of pools,

as if a kind sun

let a red net

sink through the bog,

reach down to a forgotten

infancy of granite,

and dredge up

a haul of colours

that play and sparkle

through the smother of bog,

pinks, yellows,

amber and orange.

Your saffron scarf,

filled with wind,

rises over your head

like a halo,

then swings to catch

the back of your neck

like a sickle.

The next instant

the dark returns

this sweep of rotting land,

shrunken and vacant.

Listen,

you can almost hear

the hunger falling

back into itself.

This is no place

to be.

With the sun

withdrawn,

the bog wants to sink,

break

the anchor of rock

that holds it up.

We are left.