Great Northern Divers in Ballinskelligs Bay
Rent from DeepDyve- Great Northern Divers in Ballinskelligs Bay
Now, by the sea, feet in the sea, and the waves washing over them, watching these birds, rare birds of the north, birds with the cry of a wolf that's made mad by the moon—
and the sea here so still and so pale and the black and white birds swimming low, half submerged and ambling about on the ghost-grey stillness of water like two people walking and talking as we did that night, in the long northern light—
and I think now how simple was simple desire, how when I was young I fell down into love with every man that I slept with— while now I just fall into love with the way a whole life has been lived inside a body not young anymore, not quick, not fine, but thickened with all the lived life— [End Page 82]
there are people you know for a day and you love them and all their lived lives and the way you can swim with them out onto water so still and so pale that it hardly exists except as a luminous ground for this drifting, this talking—
but now the divers have dived, have taken the plunge and no trace marks the swell of the sea lying under this shift of sea-light.
Kerry Hardie was born in 1951 and lives in County Kilkenny, Ireland. Her publications include four collections of poetry, a chapbook and two novels. Most recently her book of poems The Silence Came Close was released with Gallery Press. She has won many awards, including the National Poetry Prize (Ireland).
