I Inishbofin on a Sunday morning. Sunlight, turfsmoke, seagulls, boatslip, diesel. One by one we were being handed down Into a boat that slipped and shilly-shallied Scaresomely every time. We sat tight On short cross-benches, in nervous twos and threes, Obedient, newly close, nobody speaking Except the boatmen, as the gunwales sank And seemed they might ship water any minute. The sea was very calm but even so, When the engine kicked and our ferryman Swayed for balance, reaching for the tiller, I panicked at the shiftiness and heft Of the craft itself. What guaranteed us— That quick response and buoyancy and swim— Kept me in agony. All the time As we went sailing evenly across The deep, still, seeable-down-into water, It was as if I looked from another boat Sailing through air, far up, and could see How riskily we fared into the morning, And loved in vain our bare, bowed, numbered heads. II Claritas. The dry-eyed Latin word Is perfect for the carved stone of the water Where Jesus stands up to his unwet knees And John the Baptist pours out more water Over his head: all this in bright sunlight On the façade of a cathedral. Lines Hard [...]
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