CONNEMARA

Air heavy with the sweet tang of salt and seaweed.

Riotous hedgerows bursting with orange crocosmia, creamy pink honeysuckle and purple thistle heads.

Splashes of red fushia buzzing loudly as unseen bees do their work.

A lone cow stands upon a rocky outcrop.

Water softly lapping and slapping seashore stones.

Early morning crisscross trails of the overnight transatlantic flights as they finally find the North Atlantics edge,

Each flight tearing a rip in a wraparound sky,

Of cloudscapes like celestial cities.

Magnificent castellations and turrets and cruising spaceships,

Reflected perfectly in the still water below.

The horizon folding the image at its centre.

A hurl of rain against the wall of the cottage,

Twenty minutes later a burst of yellow sunshine.

Hidden religs – uneven fields of bones and raggedy assemblies of holy relics and plastic flowers.

Agus an Gaeilge – beautiful guttural sounds gurgling in the throats of local men in the fields.

The smell of turf fires in August,

At dusk the plaintiff cry of a curlew,

And the Connemara light, especially in evening, as the sun dips below the horizon on this western edge of Europe.