Saoirse

A chara, The wind came down off the Atlantic last night and took the clothesline with it. Bran barked at something I could not see, which is common here. This coast teaches you that not everything that barks needs to be named. Paidí was in the pub on Thursday. He sang three verses of an old song his mother taught him, and then stopped. He always stops. He says the fourth verse is not his to give. I don't ask who it belongs to. There is a stone up on Cnoc na Cailleach that I swear has moved four feet west since I was a girl. My father would have said it's the peat settling. My grandmother would have said do not speak to it directly. I find I still do not speak to it directly. Tell me: what in your life is old and still unfinished, a thing that has its own patience? Slán go fóill, Saoirse