A REFUGE FOR POETS WHO WRITE IN THE LYRIC TRADITION,
WITH RHYME AND METER, WITH OR WITHOUT MUSIC
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SEA STACKS OF KERRY
The sea is quiet as can be.
The wind is nearly still today.
The sun’s reflection on the sea
Is blinding and I look away.
I see no waves approaching land,
Nor hear them lapping on the shore.
All I see from where I stand
Are ripples only, nothing more.
But the sea is restless on the stacks
That jut above the swirling foam;
It covers them and then flows back,
But never leaves the rocks alone.
The stacks are remnants of the past,
Marking where the sea cliff was,
But nothing here is made to last.
A cliff retreats; it always does.
The water pounds relentlessly
And penetrates the weakest cracks,
Till rocks break off into the sea
And isolate these ragged stacks
Which ocean surf will then erode,
Reducing them to grains of sand
That drift into a quiet cove
And settle out upon a strand.
Dingle, Ireland, 2001
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