Winter Sea, Glasillaun

Grey gulls, four, rise up before me. Glittering.

Grey gulls, four, rise up before me. Glittering.

My footsteps steady, thudding softly on packed sand.

Black humps of seaweed on the strand's back,

the strand a lifeless beige where nothing stirs.

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Mweelrea, gone Japanese, wears a shawl of snow,

an old man waiting for the end, looking at himself

in the mirror of Killary. The tide quiet, my mind

softly thudding on its own packed sand. To lift anchor

and float, seeming to be free of it: to be at home

in the moment's coming and going, raw hands

raspberry from the cold, the east wind burning

to the brain, the brain falling away to ash, a sifting

in which things could come to light, might glitter.