Knocknarea

Do you remember this?
The cusp of summer, the ocean spread before us;
how dazzling it was, a lavish interlude of blue.
Think how this was once our element,
our ice-blue playlet, our kelp-scented breast.
How once we plunged into its numbing cisterns,
wavering streaks in a teeming universe,
earth creatures naked and luminous.

Surfacing to the sound of gulls and gannets,
the never-settling terns picking at the surf.
There, stretched above the village, the stone-
shouldered mountain like a mythic keeled-up
ship; a fable we might enter, an under-passage,
a cavern bearing our hieroglyphs. Scattered calc
and bone fragments. Two effigies wrapped
in linen. A table laid with sea thrift.