Eganising Connemara 

for Desmond Egan

​The stars: nailed to night’s billboard and suspiciously bright
Two boreens distant, the sea, drunk and tired, harries the rock, refusing to sleep
Dawn sits somewhere in a waiting room
And Inisheer is a strip of light, red as an oystercatcher’s beak.
 
But how can I Eganise the moment
Make it poignant and eternal
Without dismantling its simplicity
Without dancing on the grave of its innocence?
 
And as the sky gyrated imperceptibly
One of four sleeping cows coughed politely
In the small moon-starved garraí next to me
 
And there it was, there it was –
A world of dormant things hinted at and set in motion,
But never ever overstated.

                                                                    DJ 2020