Losing It

A January afternoon;

between myself and Achill Sound

slanting light fires the land

climbs the gable ends of cottages

while, brooding in the background,

Corraun mountain dark and stern

with its crumbling frown of cliffs and ridges

looks from beneath its cap of cloud.

I am walking round and round

my chalet, counting revolutions,

a circuit each pass of the drainpipe;

at sixty I shall stop knowing that

my body will have shed a pound of fat

and in its place, there will be poetry.

This poem was written pretty much as it is with very little or no editing. It was composed in my head while performing the activity described, and I am very grateful it came so easily - one of those gifts we sometimes receive. It makes up for all the hours when struggling to write that seems to occur frequently as part of a writers life.