A Rare Blue Irish Elephant

In a small Irish Town where the pulse is slow
...and...
Where each step forward seems the same as each step back...
Old boats lie discarded in the soft lagoon
Of the Wexford Bay
Forlorn and tossed out Queens
Lost souls amongst the debris
and the trinkets from the sea.

Oh man oh man..my head was thick with dew
on leaving you so early
Fresh frost ... the air...a chill upon the face

And as I came around the bend ...I saw... I saw

I kid you not... I saw an Elephant...right there before my eyes
A Rare Blue Irish Elephant standing the marsh.
And with it was the Long Necked Gallic Giraffe
... that all had thought long dead
... if not extinct.

A Saturday safari at the break of day
The Rare Blue Irish Elephant....an unknown Gallic Giraffe
together by the rippling tide ?

...Could this be...?
Had last night’s fantasy has become this morning’s sour dawn.

Was that late night supper fish and clotted cream
Now going to the brain ?

Had the red hot rendezvous of our mid-night fantasy
Left me a witless Morning Fool

And all those coals that burned so well at night
Had they now turned to ashes in my head ?

I shivered in my coat....made sure I had some photographs
To take and show
Before I mentioned it....to you..

You never know...

Kristine Byrne 14th feb 2011 (for Declan)