The first time I attempted the ascent,
I turned back, the sleet and icy winds
too formidable for one recently
enlightened as to limits beyond which
one should not hike. But the next day
I trekked past the stone circle—a rare
and ancient monument located
in ankle-deep mud outside the village
of Maghery, past the ten-foot-high
famine walls still intact after 200 years
of the ocean’s pounding, past the dog
walking his owner to a sandy beach—
the beach a rarity on an island
of embedded rocks and cliffs initially formed
by the collision of two continental plates
420 million years ago. At the lone bar
in the village, I took the road toward
Crohy Head, past one of 83 World War II
look out posts, past the word ÉIRE
(Gaelic for Ireland) painted on stones and
arranged in massive white letters to notify pilots
they were flying over a neutral country,
past the sea arches of natural rock, past caves
and soapstone mines, past sheep which slipped
through barbed wire to roam unencumbered,
until I reached a place among the clouds
where a stone bench awaited my discovery.
There I sat and talked with my mother
as I had so many times on her bench
on another island.
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