TALAMH.

 
 
 Land, first born of the first born,

Here before us, here without us, alone.

The ancient eye of landscape watched our coming

patiently, through pebble, boulder and stone.

Land gave us whereness and temporary roots,

Foundation for our frailty and need,

In return we gave her rape, ruin and pillage

To power our engine of greed.

Mother of meteor, father of fossil,

Vulnerable to religion’s daughter,

Silent parchment of all commandments,

Her message is ferried by breeze and water.

Rock and mountain, grain of sand,

Ledge and ravine has soul.

Intruder man knows lesser Gods,

Lesser than her grounded mole.

What is ‘here’ or ‘there’ without the land?

Where is home and away?

Every place is where she leaves us,

Allows us to come or stay.

Birds and beasts her allies,

Seas and mountains her stores,

Trees and rivers her jewels,

Etna and Vesuvius her pores.

Man, an earthen vessel himself,

Self proclaimed Lord of all,

Stone, the ultimate conclusion,

Certainty, the coming of another fall.

Ever changing skin of vegetation and colour

Every heartbeat an ever filling glass,

Earth, mantle of our useless bones,

Secure in the knowledge, ‘these too will pass’.

 

(Talamh is the Irish word for earth or ground. The only truly solid element)