Poets at the Beach

by Eileen Sheehan

i.m Maurice J. Reidy, poet
No matter what we write, our rivers will insist
on flowing downhill; sand will infiltrate
our sandwiches and the years will grow
age–spots on our skin. All this, too,
is extraordinary. I tell you how

my father knew a poet who made water
climb a tree, not in a poem but in his own
backyard. A man who utilised
whatever was at hand to build a contraption
that drew water up a sycamore,

harnessing gravity flow to a tap
in his cottage scullery. You point
a little further down the strand to where
children squeal as the dead crab they picked
an hour ago suddenly takes legs across the sand.

Our laughter at its sideways break
for freedom weakens our resolve
to solve the mysteries of what is wondrous,
what is not. Our talk trails off; our thoughts
lie down before us, take the sun.