Slaney
Oily flows toward the widening space
Of the Norse Gods creeping below the tidal fall.
The boiling waves move inexorably downstream
As the exiting tide adds salinity to its fresh taste.
Deeper here and greener with a tinge of brown.
The folding wefts of water make rivulets
In the passage from brackish and then to salt.
The wind scurries across the uneven planes to rippling squall.
Dark stones watch from the ancient banks.
Glassless space where hope passed and left
To find a new and better space.
Past ancient woods of yew and tangled hazel.
Deep nets cast deep below the turning surface.
To snare and capture the giant of the depths.
Spawned in its bowels and carried back
To make a smothering trip to ancient mountain stones.
The dapple and dart of the fishers deep,
As they rest and wait below the barnacle cover
Of ancient stones arched in majesty over its mighty girth.
A slow splash of white flashes, as a swan bellies down in its coolness.
Morning cows wade stiffly in the flowing motion.
Drinking slowly with deep gasps of inhaled swallow weed.
They stand and watch as the Dublin train rattles overhead
And plunges steaming, into the black gash of deep cut stone.
Oars cut deep in early falling tide as a fishing cot
Turns ancient spiraling wake to complete the circle
And encase the meshed walls of entanglement.
To pull the hopeful catch onto muddy shores.
Wider, expanding and creeping slower with steady flow
It moves past the place where Harvey hung on the bridge of death.
Past the warm confessionals of the Franciscan fathers.
Past ancient barnacles standing safely on pitch pine timbers.
Past the stone faced ballast bank with its stacks of stone.
Turning slowly to port and outwards to the open sea.
Passing shallows and channels.
Free now, it pushes east into the golden rising morn.
Denis Hearn 2009
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