Isle

A blind flight above a brooding sea. Dawn levers the darkness. Ireland rising. Whitecaps, bright tumbled cliffs. Briny turf, moss-rooted walls, wind-havens and cottages. So green! Tidal meadows run to dewy swards. Patchwork pastures knitted to bogs. Then the sodden towns, oyster shell gables glisten like new peat. Verdant hills raise rocky turrets. In only minutes the far coast appears; goose-gray Muir Eireann; the land sliding westward. Ireland will always be like this; a gull bobbing between high waves. now seen, now lost.