Tai Chi at Sandycove

Seaweed like arms outstretched
in the still high tide floats inland
as cars zip by the shrouded pier,
the grey-blue sky stacked beyond.

An old boy pauses on the stairs
to see what I see –
the lighthouse keeper's house,
the great granite rocks – before he

returns to his guests who are all
shadows of themselves,
like you at the water's edge,
like the heron that's about to strike.

Mickey Finn’s Air

A big wind rolls down the Salmon Weir
and hits the pair of us on O'Brien's bridge.
These little islands you forget all about,
inlets, isthmuses, promontories,
canal – and walkways and ridges
between one thing and another.

Heading west is not so easy this day –
we hesitate in the wind and squally rain,
catch a breath and guide each other across
the unshakeable bridge of fast foaming waters,
your music under arm, coats and scarves flying.

Gerald Dawe’s Selected Poems was published in 2012. The Stoic Man: Poetry Memoirs will be published next year. He teaches at Trinity College Dublin.