Dunfanaghy

The edge is here. They know it, too.
Out there lies Tory’s jagged slick.
The green-grey surf’s assaulting brew
discards its spume in salty lick.
The arcing strand for now withstands
the sea’s encroachments. Time will win,
however. Tide recedes, yet sand’s
reprieve won’t last. The churning din
returns to take another inch.
A seagull pecks the putrid eyes
of washed-up dolphin. And I flinch.
It’s lovely here. But all still dies.
The craggy sweep of mountains holds
the village in its sleepy peace.
It’s self-contained. Here history’s folds
are smoothed. And yet they know that cease
must fire – the rotting dolphin’s fate
an unseen metaphor of what
this last redoubt can but await.
The edge is here. And yet they’re not
especially bothered. End is slow.
It gently darkens – slow the end.
Another storm rolls in to throw
Atlantic slap in face. They bend
themselves against its friendly force –
for it’s the unbreached thicket hedge
that stops intruder’s wavering course,
as they fall proudly off the edge.

Rupert Moreton