CLIFF TOP ENCOUNTER

And, as he had yesterday, he asked again

‘Ah now, is there room for a little one so?’

on the bench – his memorial to his wife –

on the headland above the sea, the tide

rippling and silver. ‘I come every day,’

he said, smiling, ‘not just fine August days

like this one.  I sit here and I say

where are you when I need you!’, and he laughed.

We three watched the waves swell, and the gannets dive.

He explained, as he had the day before,

that when his time came their ashes

would follow the dolphins and the porpoises.

‘We’d be swimming with the fishes like they say

in the fill-ums’. He had captained a ferry.

She had been the purser. They had retired here.

‘We could go home to Ireland any time.

It was a land of priests when we were young’.

We watched the gannets dive, and the waves swell.

He had three grandchildren. ‘They come at Christmas.

We collect sea shells for Nana’s garden’.

And then he laughed. ‘We’d be swimming with the fishes

like they say in the fill-ums’. We laughed too,

and felt we could politely take our leave,

saying we would no doubt see him again,

that ancient mariner, lonely, gentle,

with the silver sea running, and birds calling.

As we walked down the path from the headland

filament seeds were drifting and flying ants

mating above brambles and black berries

starting to ripen.