These days are unbelievable days for June. The sun rises at five fingering the morning mist as though it were a bride’s veil, and teases it for a while unobserved until the coast is clear. Then slowly at first and warming to the game it proceeds to romp naked into the high morning as if this were a chance for gratification which will never be repeated again. Which is most likely: I have perched on this island of bog and rock and wild grasses for seven years, watching the waters flow by and this is the first June when the earth has crackled under my feet like tortilla chips. It says: approach these Saharan fringes with care. Sand too can drown a man, waterless and bog-sucked under. Dry sand is deeper than you can imagine. It goes on for ever. And we after all are only grains of sand. Cunningly engraved though.
“Who is that black man moving
like an acquired target.
in the heart of Ballyhaunis?
A noonday shadow
standing up
to make itself invisible.
That is a man whose sacred groves are burnt.
He eats sand,
Fleeing a poisoned well.
Mark him passer-by.
Others have marked him before you.
Beyond this place
is the road to Ballaghadereen.
There is no sacrificing now in the oak cathedral.
The trees are cut
and hold up foreign churches.
See that hooded scarecrow
Blown in from treeless deserts?
Recognise the Ethiope
And know him.”
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