CROSSING IRELAND; "SPIDEIL ROAD, GALWAY BAY II" by ANGELA ALAIMO O'DONNELL

The sixth poem in Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s series. Click “Crossing Ireland” for the opening essay.  More about Angela Alaimo O’Donnell

 

SPIDEIL ROAD, GALWAY BAY II

 

Here at the margin of the world all is edge.

Rock juts against green hedge,

the sea cuts a long knife of shore,

sky meets sand in a bleared scrim,

all muffled in a cotton of fog.

 

Amid the blab of the pub

I’m made to feel welcome.

Then the savage cut,

sudden as blood,

struck by the stranger

or, worse, my child

irked by my joy and banter.

 

I fade into that fog,

walk among the ghosts

as I hear the dead tales

told of me:

she was a nuisance

and our great fool.

 

The wounds still fresh,

today I eye

the same sea & earth & sky

with a difference.

 –

 

Photo by Charles  R. Hale