Touch the Stone

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The green fields, that fantasyland green, the Emerald City green that gives Ireland its nickname, gives way to stone as you approach the west coast, that flaggy shore of Heaney’s poem. “Is this the Ireland you remember?” I’d ask, and he’d squint a little, see the old picture in his mind, and say “Not quite - it’s when we get out west, that’s the Ireland I know.” And there it was, suddenly, as if emerging from a green haze, a cobblestone hill, a hill of boulders, like the land had been scraped by the west wind off the base that supports all that greenery. Small shrubbery clings to the stone, and without the daily rain and constant mist, the coast might be a barren place, swept clean of any chance of growth. This stone was as a magnet to me, and I gave myself to it, drawn to stone and the Stone, so that everywhere I stepped outside, my fingers had to touch, my arms hold, and when I could I’d press my body to it, a big boulder in the Burren, or a Castle wall over the Cliffs of Moher, press and close my eyes, feel the warm/cool texture of it, offer myself to him, the Stone, so far away and so fresh in my mind. This was as close as I could get, from across the Atlantic, the Allegheny hills, the midlands and the Texas scrub. I could breath the breeze that came from him, ultimately, think “Maybe just a particle of this air was in his lungs yesterday, or several days ago.” And somehow, touching stone, I kept in touch. And somehow, on my return, we were deeper in each other than before.



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