Seven lifetimes of peat

Beyond the unused pier

Old Sea was wave lite

on a rocking chair listening to the radio of the sky.

The islander stood on worn stone

with a saucerful of his silence,

spilling not a drop.

Drifting spells were broken by a whee-wail-whining sea bird.

Herring Gull.

Has the smell of rain about it, he says of the night,

a night as pitiless as a hearse full of dominoes

pacing towards the cureless collision with sunlight.

There's six peat hags on the back hill

decayed like old ewes’ teeth,

seven lifetimes of peat lie in their tobacco wombs.

Two summers ago I heaved the unsmoked earth

with needled shoulders, dwindling arms

for the last time,

today creels are brittling by the back door

beside knives blunted by tea-strained rain.

I still hear the songs of the cutting squad.

But the undried loam will wait,

wait for soft hands and savages

to enkindle the sky with oranges and reds.