Along the last stretch of coast that day
we found the mournful, unwounded land we sought,
stone-galled meadows fraught
with gorse, slopes of a headland running away
to embrace the downfallen moon
of its valley, and the sky reflecting a sea
like a stitched and thistled moor
the blues and slates of Donegal tweed,
water the color of milk tea poured across black rocks
gritty with limpets and barnacles,
tresses of glinting kelp bound in torcs
beaten from the supplest of submarine metals.
Found—and lost to the wheel and grind
of downshifting stars. Lost. But found.
~ Campbell McGrath
