Landing Mackerel on the pier head at Portmagee
By Billy Goat
A feathered five from fathoms deep
distils a shower of broken pearls
Burnished silver-blue fish
Breathless. Sunlit. Flop and curl
Give counted out a buyer's dozen
Fresh salted. From a brief affray
drawn by hook and hand
to mouth a searing oratory
From a barbed baptism. Baskets lie
gutted and gulled. Market ready
Heaped and held down by the quay
in hundreds. Priced. Marked and Iced
Glass eyes fixed. Like a thousand
stars reflected from an ancient sea
Supplicants for salvation
Shoaling towards eternity
This anchorage is still. Firm
footed in the bright wave's harvest
Ripples from remembered storms
stirring ghosts in long departed boats
Simon Peter's, Andrew's. The Sons of Zebedee
Brendan in his leather tub. Sailing
Soft and silent as the sea
Tidal. Insistent memory
Back the Strand
(For John B Keane at 70)
Back the strand I have walked
Between the remnants of bagged up pups
Bright blossoms of anemone
and washed back sheep's gut
A leveret has sprung
from where my foot would tread
Hesitant past a saint tombed isle
Archipelago of the dead
Distant bells have voiced their call
consecrating the wind torn hills
Over cloud chased Coomanaspig
Curlews answered shrill
This path rising to a jagged grin
where moon and earth meet sun and sky
In the long grass there to listen
amongst shell and sea song I will lie
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