A long way off
Through fog that veils all else
Faint voice is heard
So faint no mortal ear
Can catch the pitch
Save from atop
The spiral brows
Of love long-standing hills
Girdled with cows
From a long way off
So far no one can guess
An echo twirls
(or seagulls cry perhaps)
swoops down to kiss the spray
and rides toward shore
on the ninth next wave
splashes the rocks
tone-deaf till now
that the timbre and mettle
of its curling lips
etched on the cliffs
Her secret
This poem is from Patrick Stack’s first collection, The Parting (ADA, 2013), available on https://patrickstack.ie/
