Summer Solstice on the West Coast of
Ireland
This
afternoon the sun is more a rumor,
probably
still high behind a stretch
of
somber clouds in shades of dappled grey.
The
wind is brisk and plumes of ocean spray
rise
against the cliffs and sea foam drifts
all
the way to the bog, settles on the stubble
of
freshly cut hay and backs of sheep that face
to
lee, huddled against the day marked
as
the longest since the age of hoary-haired men
dressed
in ragged wool capes who aligned
boulders
to measure their place in creation,
who
tuned their lives to follow the light
like
the lilies on the bank of the estuary.
It’s
why I’ve come here, a blow-in like
the neckless
starlings motionless on the wire.
Sometimes
they fly to a standstill against the wind
before
suddenly rising as one winged flight
into
an updraft, turning with the precision
of a
drill team, becoming specks then disappearing.
Yes,
it’s why I’ve come here. I come here
to
be neither here nor there, to be in a place
where
strange is familiar, where it is normal
on
summer solstice to light a turf fire,
its
fragrance taking hold of you.
James Green (Jim) has worked as a naval officer,
deputy sheriff, high school English teacher, professor of education, and
administrator in both public schools and universities. Recipient of two
Fulbright grants, he has served as a visiting scholar at the University of
Limerick in Ireland and the National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan. His
academic publications include three books, as well as numerous monographs and
articles in professional journals. He has published three chapbooks of poetry (Stations
of the Cross and Barely Still, Barely Stirring, both with Finishing
Line Press, and The Color of Prayer: Poems on Rembrandt Painting the Bible
with Shanti Arts Books), and individual poems have appeared in literary
magazines in England, Ireland, and the USA. He lives in Muncie, Indiana.