─ july 2004 ─
Written
with haiku friends
With Guest Jerry Ball
Glenda Cimino, Norman Darlington,
Gilles Fabre,
Jim Norton, Maeve O'Sullivan, Gabriel
Rosenstock
on a walk at Killiney Beach
the maths professor
hands me an egg-shaped stone
- well-weathered
A single sailboat
disappearing
into Dalkey Sound
Bray Head shimmering
shimmying away from
Three Rock Mountain
womanly figure
struggles onto the shore
wait, I know her!
makeshift barbeque
fish steaks and tomato bread
for the hungry swimmers
Maeve
descending the steps
how many hands
on this smooth rail?
listening
to names of stones
I walk on sand
an unknown creature's skull floats
downstream
we wait for each other
at different steps
tide receding
one drop
the short journey
from cloud to ocean
Norman
turlabhait na dtonn glanann smaointe
crash of waves
clears thoughts
cogarnach na dtonn
ní thugaid
ach leid
whispering waves ...
they only give
a hint
a bhroigheall
stad ded chuardach
éist tamall
cormorant
cease seeking
listen awhile
an bhfeicfidh siad
a chéile
anocht?
púróg shlíobach, an ghealach
will they see each other tonight?
polished beach
pebble
the moon
Gabriel
Out of the horizon
a sailing boat
has appeared
Effortlessly
each wave goes around
this rock
Seagull and cormorant
hovering over where
fish live and die
The woman
coming out of the cold waters
I know her!
After years of being mauled
the flat pebbles are skipped back
by a kid
Like there are two sides
to life there are two sides
to these waves
Killiney Beach
to each of your grains I want to say
"Thank you"
Gilles
a pocketful of stones
from one end to the other
returned to the waves
that tree-trunk
bedded deep in the sand
is an elm bole
a fisherman's tackle
opening the seamless surface
as he reels in
a sunlit acre
between sea & mountain
my wanderer's gaze
with evening
two hooded crows come
to the beach picnic
For Jerry Ball:
the blue of this water, this sky
your cap
a seagoing heron
something inconsolable
eased by its call
Thinking afterwards of that heron's
call, and remembering that it was on Killiney Beach in the midst of a
terrible storm that Samuel Beckett had his great 'endarkenment' - the
realization which guided his life's work - I recast this haiku as an
inadequate homage:
a seagoing heron
it was here he plumbed
that fathomless cry
Jim
beachcombing
I run out of names
for my stone collection
children’s football
the incoming tide
returns the shots
summer twilight
choosing the flat stones
just for skipping
Martello Tower
I search the horizon
for the French fleet
beachcombing
willingly, I offer
to share the stones
Martello Tower
Is there a hermit
hidden underneath?
incoming tide
the red setter wants to share
the sniff of it
footprints
children and dogs
in the wet sand
Jerry