Missed this the first time around. Very nice. I'm just gonna start with what I had and piece it together slowly, revising and adding as I go.
and from a long way off, it calledthe earth at rest: sound and secure in herself, at peace
with her rhythm breathing slow and deep in millennials
the valleys, the fields, the outcrops of rock, the dark
damp and hidden birthplaces, and the sand and the ocean.
in the fast fading light there is just this: the one earth,
this one field of play, calling to us while we were still far off.
there is a full patterned rightness here: the fossilized layers
like warm woven blankets, the dark desert places renewed
over a millennium of renewals, and in the dim pale light a home,
a house, up high on a hill welcomes us as warmly as an
ever-returning spring, renewing yet again as if eternally
the spirit of our prodigal game.
here is the way to rest, and to restoration. the patterns of
this sure place: eating together, laughter, the singular joys
of making and of doing and of finishing well, shared
somehow in this one single moment, solitary and communal.
and here too the silence of endless wheat coloured grass,
and the deep dark ocean under an endless sky of mottled grey.
the insular, singular joys of play-making, and of the game:
of irons and wood, and the leather a warm blanket wrap
for tools and our tired sodden feet treading lightly still across
silent fields and valleys and the outcrops of rock: here there
is restoration and some blessed rest, breathing slow and deep,
secure for now in ourselves alone. One might even say: at home.
the rhythm of this singular game, at this one quiet place: a richly
patterned rightness here, slow as in the millennial, our dark places
renewed on this earth-bound field of play, one shot at a time, rarely
good but sometimes good enough, and with a house on a hill waiting
to warmly welcome us in the fading light of yet another spring,
the solitaries, the singulars, all praying like prodigals to finish well.
Been tinkering now all evening. I still think I'm writing about Bandon, but I can't be sure since I've never been there!!
Peter