Earth Tides Sinéad McClure

Earth Tides

“No envy unless some atavistic scholar Plodding that dry and tight-packed world discover Some dusty relic that once could swim, a fossil”

—From No More Sea by Louis MacNeice

This land was once Atlantis a narrow island drowning with every newly made shore fossils rolling through hot sand.

This land was once Atlantis but there are Earth Tides too the moon moves dry ground in deep booms beneath my feet.

This land was once Atlantis with a rich vocabulary that spoke of sea in salt-wet surf now silence is the dark weight I carry

into evening. I leave it to rest on the hedgerow in the valley’s thin mist, leave it jealous of the common newt swimming breaststroke in the grass.

Sinead McClure