Deep in the unknown
empty quarter
of that country
 
There is a lake
and in the middle of the lake
there is an island
 
And in the middle
of the island
stands a mountain
 
And from its top
the oceans of the world
are visible:
 
We are less different
from each other
than islands from the land
 
ii
 
This is how we
came here
like the cormorant
 
Inhabiting two species
the water and
the stone walls on the mountain
 
Peruvian marks
of lazy-beds
stretched all across the countryside
 
Sailing out of Roonagh
a red queen and a white queen
dance across the bay
 
Coming midday
into harbour
with a thin moon overhead
 
iii
 
Strip away words
lesser words
and few
 
Seeing things
from nearer to the ground
to focus small:
 
Grains of salt
around the rock-pool
shell
 
Stone
flat sea and open sky
is vastness
 
Is silence
sound and vastness
of everything grown in
 
iv
 
Like fence-posts we stick up
on the horizon
figures masts and tower
 
Over and beyond
islands are like lakes inverted
upside down
 
The sea above
the giant hollow places
far beneath
 
My father told me
look at mountains paintings
upside down
 
Over there inside my head
still watching
light and shade on Minaun
 
v

When you walk around an island
you do not come back
to where you started out
 
This is the Imram
and the fact:
the day itself has changed
 
And light and time
the moving measure
of us all moved on
 
The ritual
of couples landing here
and setting out
 
At once
on bicycle and foot
to map the edges of this Ark
 
vi
 
The tower house is present as
the sea is
always present and the wind
 
That blows the county flags:
as sheep
as sea gulls up above the wind
 
And cloud and mountains
blue on grey on blue
all life: and signs of life
 
A shovel lying on the ground
a coal bag
underneath a bush
 
Blue clothes-pegs
paint tins
bags of sand cement and stones
 
vii
 
Children in the schoolyard
in the sun
girls and boys
 
With helmets hurleys:
a sliotar in his hand
the teacher
 
Is explaining
all the expertise
of poc and stance
 
Above the glittering sea
that stretches out
to Inishturk
 
And fuschia green and red
is everywhere
all Mayo red and green
 
viii
 
Please do not touch
the curraghs . . . 
the archetypal care
 
As Liam Brady heard
a woman say
in Connemara
 
Half a century ago: a mhac
ná bí
ag briseadh bád
 
Everything comes here
by hand
by sea and history
 
One way and another:
Terra
Marique Potens O Maille
 
ix
 
In the cloisters
of the monastery of Oliveto
there is

A Signorelli fresco
of the angels visiting in mufti
one woman
 
Cutting bread
another pouring wine or water
from a jug for them:
 
The stuff of day to day
unconsciously rehearsed
as this
 
The scene repeated here
a young girl
pouring tea into a cup
 
x
 
Sand in the breaking waves
stones talking
in the flow back undertow
 
The low-tide rolling talk
of stones
along the beach
 
And the one-eyed dog
who waits
all afternoon in hope
 
Of stone or stick
thrown in for him to fetch
clocks off goes home
 
I see him next day
hard at work
driving sheep down to the boat
 
xi
 
I saw that red-gold hair before
in Philip’s tomb
in Macedon
 
Burning red-gold
oak branch diadem and filigree
of twigs and leaves
 
That living artistry of wind
and chance
that crosses time
 
Comes down to us
like amber
floating on the Baltic sea:
 
A woven beehive
and a sea-wise cloth
such wisdom Ariadne brought
 
xii
 
Standing at the end of Europe
by Grace O’Malley’s grave
in the Atlantic
 
The sea-light
seeping through the stone and windows
the fading painted figures
 
On the walls and ceiling
reaffirm
the unseen acts of reverence repeated
 
That we apply
the sanctity we bring to things
are what survive:
 
These damaged boars and stags
still living here
that sleek elastic hound
 
xiii
 
Going the road from
sea to sea
where the valley rises up
 
Between
Knockmore and Knocknaveen
and a woman on her bike
 
Comes cycling from the sun
none but us both
in that stupendous space
 
And loneliness:
the simple endless moment
of being there
 
And nowhere else
and knowing it: and then to leave
a moment so inhabited
 
xiv
 
Arrival and departure
all going to and coming from
in the unending
 
Business
of ferrying
the present to the present:
 
We land and gravitate a while
disperse
take credit for the weather
 
The wooden benches
for the passer by
stare out to sea:
 
A line of great stone heads
we shade our eyes
looking out to where we were
 
xv
 
They do not come again
the flashing lines
these glancing
 
Points of contact
if we don’t
quickly press them to the page
 
The moments when
each frame becomes another
then another:
 
Making now for Roonagh
one young woman
hands round sweets
 
The rolling sea is luminous
a young man spends the journey
looking back