They look upon your brindle bake
and break the silence with their spite
it whips across the troubled air
and cracks upon your crescent mouth.
It lingers there for just a time
but now lost to the crowd,
how fortunate are we to see
the best of Ballyshannon Brown

Fishermen at Ballyshannon
Netted an infant last night
Along with the salmon.
An illegitimate spawning,

A small one thrown back
To the waters. But I'm sure
As she stood in the shallows
Ducking him tenderly

Till the frozen knobs of her wrists
Were dead as the gravel,
He was a minnow with hooks
Tearing her open.

She waded in under
The sign of the cross.
He was hauled in with the fish.
Now limbo will be

A cold glitter of souls
Through some far briny zone.
Even Christ's palms, unhealed,
Smart and cannot fish there.

Ivy climbs gnarled knotted trunks
Darker lines and streams divide where white wool digs below tufts of heather and tall tipped reeds
Calm flat lakes vacate
Pale hues of birch become rocky barren lands of moss and brown broken bracken
Thick conifers multiplied for miles
The mountain side tipped with ice
Houses change like the hedgerow from new to old
Some unfurnished whilst others glow