Wind and Sea

Roar of wind 
Covers even sigh of wave
Fills this little house, an taigh,
Cottage of stone walls, oak beams
Iron stove muttering surrounded by roses
Gate moaning loose in the wind
Rooks call amid heaving branches
Yesterday walking beaches
Gathering shells, marveling at the
Hundred kinds of seaweed
Brown, yellow, red, green.
Dulaman. duileasc, feamainn
We came to the midden of some
Ancient gathering place eroding out the sand
Heap of limpet shells mixed with fire-cracked rock
Stand wondering at the hand that casts
The stone of history down the deep well of time
The expanse that separates us
The danger from which there is no escape
And no return
But doesn’t clear away leavings of this five thousand year feast
But we turn away to seek our rare 
cowries, lose the way to Ballyconneely
disappointed in our quest we content ourselves
with sea potatoes, augers, 
maerl like finger bones, whelks and
periwinkles, limpets like ancient shields
razor shells, fill our pockets with 
golden stones, and white, 
green like the sea whose murmuring fills the 
lull in the wind.