A hybrid piece about writing the environment, crafted by trips to Bull Island in Dublin Bay.
I
Quelled,
with slow blinking eyes
It swings like the pleats of a curtain
A tone of the enigmatic
Of salted hues and plastic truth
It falls behind itself, blue over blue
And the charred heart feels red
The concrete walls disappear
Taking with it the traces of chatter
As sunrays infuse within skin
Sculpted pebbles lay with crooked shells
Long as the eye perceives
Bask in its theatrical natural
As sounds bounce off the seaweed
And fly with the sea wind
Wings flap in sync with the silhouettes
With the flickering stars
Tempted to let the soul sink in
A face,
A sun,
A moon,
A sea.
Possessed by the tranquillity.
II
Stonechat chirps a tune, the waves whisper,
I ponder, I listen, I look at the passerine
Round horizon envelops the ivory ships
Marram grass dances on the dunes,
I inhale, I caress, I whistle with the chirp
With all the life that is alive, mind is fruitless.
Echoes of seagulls within the imposing clouds,
They take over the skies, they take over us,
I see, I blink, I feel the raindrops
Sand grains under my feet wish they were us
Solid skin, made of meaning
Heavy inside out unlike the weight of dust.
Roots grasp the clayey soil, buried, splitting nutrients
Outside the lens of observation yet substantially salient;
A piece is as significant as the whole.
I linger, I touch, I walk through the natural,
An erosion leads you crestfallen
Wildflowers bloom in the salt marsh.
They walk, on sunrays, they giggle, dogs bark,
By dawn their footprints sink and fuse like scars
Yellow poles stand like trunks, a witness of change
They mark the ground just like the boulders,
I smile, I stare, I wonder who they are
On the asphalt road they sit in steel cars.
Does time shift daintily when impressed by the picturesque?
Did 200 years elapse in a blink or did the sea linger for long?
Do the fierce storms cry too at the lure of it all?
I contemplate, I exhale, I lay down on the shore.
III
Does time shift daintily when impressed by the picturesque?
A taste of salt burns my mouth, my eyes adjust to focus. Breathe in, breathe out. I bury my canvas and paints in this sand, the same sand that sifts through my charcoal hair and fills in the tethered pockets of my nylon bag. Sat down on the shore, on the same sand that brings me nostalgia on a whim. It talks to me; it makes me feel things. I recollect a blurry memory of an ugly sandcastle, made by my hands, right here, which I destroyed myself before time could. Time. Breathe in, breathe out. The only place I remember where I cannot feel time, and it cannot hinder my existence, a point of escape from all the chaos of life, of art, of me, is this island. I might have forgotten who I am, but I remember the sounds of this island. Just an island yet it talks to me, it nudges me, it makes me disassociate and despise time. Because if it stopped, I could still be me, alive, normal, like the rest of those faces jogging along the shore. If it stopped, I could breathe and keep breathing until all of me was fixed again. Birds sing, clouds thunder, leaves shuffle and I still wonder. I remember these sounds, and they remember me. Blood trickles down one of my nostrils, slowly making its way to my lips. I wipe, again and again, I breathe again and again, I am still here. I look around for my canvas, but it’s gone, and so is the box of paints. All that is left is me sitting here, with seashells under my feet and the sound of waves calling me. The sun fades out, and a new one rises, I pick out all the pieces, but they don’t connect any more. I remember, I recollect a memory of when I came here once, I threw a pebble in the sea and watched it bounce again and again, I wished it wouldn’t stop, and I could keep watching, and it felt like it skipped for a whole life. It felt like time was slower, the sun was still, waves moved windless, and I was there all day. Why did it change? Why does it feel different? Why can’t I just go back to being the pebble? Breathe in, breathe out. I love painting in crimson shades, the pigment of roses, sunsets, blood, and danger. These shades are horrifyingly beautiful to me, and now I am the one being painted red. Just a slob of red, that is all I will leave behind on the grainy canvas, below this idyllic sky, washed under the aquamarine, decorated with sandy beads and as a useless fossil of time, I will leave.
IV
I sit,
Motionless, as the ocean cannot.
Coastline glides seawards, breeze over dulcet waves,
The silt piles on, traveling on the easterly swells,
The mollusc and the marine lay bygone.
And I sit,
Immobile, the stars are not.
Revolving earth, constellations parallax,
The moon dances, but never looks away,
Tidally locked and fairly loyal.
And I sit,
Stagnant, the biosphere does not.
Foliage and fauna live to fruition,
As the rain falls and snow melts,
Every minute entities alter,
I engrave the sand with my shell.
Yet I sit,
Stationary, humans can never be.
I lived, I moved, I knew existence once,
But engrossing humans live noticeably more,
Skin, bones, spirit, full of colours,
Finding useless meaning for it all,
And a habit of making things happen.
And I was sitting,
Static, unlike the human from the east,
I got chosen by a warm hand,
And the grains in my crevices fell out,
I moved, I sat in a new world,
Different from the bank, from my mollusc memories,
With a human owner, a novel sandless life.
And she picked it up,
A faded violet seashell, its crevices full of stories,
Specks of sand nestled within, scared of detachment,
Relentless beauty, alone in the scattered mess,
Its prickles full of hope, a destined attachment,
And she wondered how it existed before.