An Excerpt

In almost a drunken stupor I clambered over the rail separating the conducted sidewalk to the free sea. I stumbled over unexpectedly slippery rocks covered with seaweed and the little tough rough shell things- barnacles? I had my eyes fixed on a rock that protruded into the waters, surrounded on all sides by the gentle yet crashing tide. Despite the tightness and security of my boots, I didn’t deem it feasible at the time to attempt to reach that rock, so I satisfiedly settled for the rock behind it. I perched upon it and as the wind and the salty waves began permeating the air around me, I grew grateful for my two sweaters and longsleeves. I rocked and shook on that rock. And I surrounded myself with words and song and peace and speech. I conversed and argued, and prayed and recited poetry. I sung and I screamed, I challenged and I accepted. I cried and I felt proud. I grew in the eyes of man, and shrank in the eyes of the sea. The sea rose and trembled and I rose and trembled with it. A bird perched on the rock across from me, and I yelled and I yelled at it. I promised the bird in a voice as loud as I could muster for the present time sitting on that rock, that I would not budge until it did. That bird on its spindly legs, calmly taking in the crazed, hooded  hatted man rocking back and forth on the crest of a seaweedy and wet rock, I knew it knew me, and I knew it. “YOU HAVE MY WORD BIRD, I WILL NOT MOVE UNTIL YOU DO. I WILL NOT BUDGE UNTIL YOU FLY. I CANNOT FLY BUT I CAN SIGH. YOU FLY IN THE SKY AND I WILL FOLLOW WHEN I DIE. I WILL NOT MOVE UNTIL YOU DO. YOU HAVE MY WORD, BIRD”. Despite sounding threatening, it wasn’t. The bird recognized me for what I was, something in control of itself and out of control of its surroundings. As my voice shook and cracked, now stumbling over forgotten psalms, the sun pierced through the now glowing white gray clouds beyond the mountains beyond the sea nestled against the horizon. It flashed and burst, and the rays spat forth seemed to hum in resonance with the seas surface, momentarily calmed, or so it seemed. But the soothing grayness murmured something to the sun, and, in quiet agreement, in quiet surrender, in quiet confidence, the sun dipped back behind and below the clouds, behind and below the mountains, and the light in the world, which was that rock, resumed its gray yet undepressive state, and my eyes, momentarily lit up by the crack of sun, went back to sweeping the waves and the shaking of the waters, and my boots remained stuck, as if with glue, to the rock in front of me.

The Disturbed Waters of Lahinch in County Clare