Rossglass
For Anne and Paddy
Seamus Heaney would have loved this place.
Its ancient walls rhyme with memory, seeking solace in dark spaces.
Today the brambles like blood clots, vines straining under the weight of a pending Autumn. The land turning in on itself once again.
The hedgerows hum with bees, as cows roam the beach. Fences never well mended. 'It’s the salt air' says Paddy, 'it ruins everything, but just look at that view'. That’s this place in a nutshell, beauty and rot in perfect harmony. The Mournes look on majestically, they speak of fairy glens, love trysts and illegitimacy.
And how it stills me, reconnects my feet to that time before me, deep twisted roots that tether me to this shore. Identity and belonging never more powerfully felt. My ancestors are around me here, farm labourers and seamstresses, scholars and idiots. I think we all could love this place.
September 2021 after a visit home during the pandemic.