Back when we were falling in love…

On the boating pond, Newcastle, Co Down August 1993. It must have been my turn to row!

Boating Pond

Sun prickles our necks

pale skin pinks, freckles

in August’s lazy warmth.

Across the Irish Sea salt breezes come low,

soothing. My hair lifts, strands across hot face.

We join the queue, hire a rowing boat and

take up our oars,

bold, clunking, in our inexperience,

confidently, gloriously, obliviously awkward

All alike, all clumsy on the lilting boating pond

The smooth surface is impassive,

indifferent to our bright untold, unfolding love

being grafted invisibly, inevitably.

We are braided together.

A secret is bonded here which we cannot yet see.

You row and row and we laugh, we laugh.

The pulse and splash of the rhythm finally settling into

peace. Ease. We are quiet together now.

And finally I look past you to the soft horizon,

hazing in the sun, the cloud, the sun, the sun

There they are. The quiet curves of the Mournes

and quiet too come

threads and scraps of

half-remembered stories, songs

itching the edges of my mind.

Remembering nothing in particular

I rest in the soft presence of

stories older than ours

as we make our own gentle green ripples

in the boating pond.