On the Rocks

(No, not that.) This is a poem by Eamon Grennan, from his book of poems The Quick of It (Graywolf Press, 2007), a requested Christmas gift. All the poems in the book have 10 lines, with each poem configuring the 10 lines in a different manner. Many of Grennan's poems are still-life snapshots of places in the west of Ireland, where we were in October 2006. This poem reminds me of both of my daughters, in different ways, for different reasons (reasons? does poetry need "reasons"?). It recollects for me a scene of standing on a rock in The Burren [cool link with music] or along a shore in Clifden.



When we stood on that brink-bit where rock, sea, sand and grass
Touched each other, stood on a prow of stone shouldering
Waves foaming over it, I knew how separate father and daughter
Were, how her self she was, how that stage of the journey was over.

With wind in her face and a faraway look in her eyes, she seemed
Free of all my fret and hover, sufficient to herself, ready to meet
(I could almost hear her Let be) whatever might happen, to take all

In. I let her be like that, then, feeling it, and went back to looking
At what the waves were doing to the stone mass we stood our
Ground on: how heaviness rose, cracked, broke, becoming light.