A Sea Spell - Orla Fay

On the journey to the coast we cut through
the hillsides, tunnels locked us in darkness
while the crescent of the bay grew and grew
as the train escaped its urban harness.
We had gone there seeking peace and healing,
desperate in the search for clarity
to find hushed lapping waves reassuring,
their rhythmic to and from – sanctuary.
I saw that the beach belonged to the birds,
to their curling, warbling wailing and song
and discovered open, widened wing-glides
and I too was free to breach in soaring.
I could have laid down on the sand, not stone,
nor shell, human, evolved, remembering.

Two girls walked the front. They stopped now and then
to look in the dunes for a certain kind
of fine weed, (eelgrass, wild oat or marram),
stooped search bagging a later labelled find.
We stood before the bewitching green sea,
shifting in its shade and always calling,
lulled under the enchantment of its spell,
its timelessness tempered by jagged rocks,
basalt paved inlets and coves siren swell,
the bobbing head of a seal the selkie,
mermaid, merman, the sun and the moon clocks,
forgetfulness in vision, in dreaming.
A dog’s distant bark jolted consciousness
as wraith-like water tightly embraced us.

Greystones, August 2018

---

Orla Fay (21st century) Ireland
Source: Orla Fay's website