Photohaiku

A while back my Uncle Des asked me to write some captions for an exhibition of his photographs he was having in Bray. I haven’t done anything with the resulting haiku, so I thought I’d put them up here. The ensuing frenzy of curiosity they induce to see the original images can then be sated here.

(Prom in snow, Bray Head)
B’shin easpa meidhre:
i lom-lár an gheimhridh, é
chomh fuar le h-oighre.

(Bray seaside in snow, rocks)
Everywhere you look
the prom’s a crazy pavement
of snowed-under rock.

(Church Road in snow)
Even steering blind
on this road, I’d still know home
was round the next bend.

(Cliff Walk in snow)
The Kish lighthouse winks,
miles out, and cormorants fly
with snow on their wings.

(Powerscourt waterfall)
No pool lies as still
as one that’s just white-watered
its way down a hill.

(River Vartry)
Slipped into reverse,
times floats me upstream on all
my childhood rivers.

(Glendalough)
Heavenly weather,
Saint Kevin: the sky fallen
into the water.

(Sugar Loaf in snow)
The cold’s a shocker.
To serve up a real Sugar
Loaf, add snow sugar.

(Ferris Wheel)
Coaxed back from exile,
another seafront summer
turns on its axle.

(Steps looking towards Dalkey)
Choose always the edge,
the zone where sky, sea and earth
are all within reach.

(Harbour Bar in snow)
Your hot port downed in
one. More snow outside. Best get
another round in.

(Looking out to sea, Wicklow)
That’s our last sun gone
down. That’s me setting sail and
not due home again.

(Sugar Loaf)
The scratch on the sky
this peak leaves I hereby name
the star I steer by.

(Bray Head with train)
Though still clinging on,
Brunel’s long-lost ghost tunnel
is going, going...

(Derelict window)
See through me, do you?
All’s transparent here: I too,
I see right through you.

(Steps, harbour)
Where green water lapped
round my ankles once, these days
my moorings are slipped.