Driving to Clifden

Bonnie Manion

One careens on the left of lumpy lanes,

winds through heaving verdant hills

speckled with scattered homesteads

sprinkled over green fields stitched together

with shaggy hedgerows, mottled stone fences.

 

Overhead, variegated clouds break intermittently 

revealing a benevolent baby-blue Irish sky.

Stretching upward from ancient rock walls

hugging the road, trees curl over the way,

a protective bower laced with a flurry of viridian 

shadings in the shifting shafts of sunlight.

 

The road dives steeply down a slash

in the rocky burren, turning instinctively 

toward the sea. Offshore, curtains of rain

dance like twisting spirits atop the chop,

their nimble feet frisking toward us.

 

We scurry around a looming coastal headland,

rain skittering wantonly against the windshield 

blurring edges of the world outside our windows.

Abruptly, clouds part in a luminous breakthrough,

afternoon sun glinting off the wet asphalt, brush past

storm-driven blackface sheep hovering at road’s edge.

 

Subtly flowering heather now swarms 

countless scattered  granite boulders

and tiny, shiny bogponds by our wayside.

The distant dark humps of the Twelve Bens

shimmer surreally in misty evening sunlight.

Around a dusky bend in the road, a tight cluster

of pastel  buildings huddles in the distance, 

clinging rakishly between two church spires

to the bluff above a tidal river that reflects

a setting sun sliding into a polychrome bay.

published by The Storyteller Magazine