After selkie spotting in Bullock Harbour, Dalkey in 2013.
SELKIES
Rush of wild air, tainted with mermaid's hair
Dragging you down to a thick salty world
Of watery seaweed webs
Catching your gut with its chill punch
Claiming your mind for its own
Sharp clams strike blood against rock
Tearing your toes as further you go
Walking towards your washy tomb
From birth to the given day
You've never turned away
Come to me, big brown eyes
Speckled skin like the flying thrush
Spattered over silver-grey silk
As you rush between the waves
Laughing at the clumsy clods of earth
That walk the land
That stand and point and picture you
With battery boxes and buttons
One moment there, the next gone
Vanishing with the tidal song
Sing it to me now
Let me hear as you now hear
Dive me deep beneath the surf
Till sky and sea merge
And I cannot tell my up from down
Until I drown
Sea water, saltwater, sacred water
I'll breathe the tears I cry
For one chance to follow you
For one chance to float beneath the summer moon
To eat my meals off soft belly
Chewed between flippered paws
Laughing like the Selkie
Dragging you down to a thick salty world
Of watery seaweed webs
Catching your gut with its chill punch
Claiming your mind for its own
Sharp clams strike blood against rock
Tearing your toes as further you go
Walking towards your washy tomb
From birth to the given day
You've never turned away
Come to me, big brown eyes
Speckled skin like the flying thrush
Spattered over silver-grey silk
As you rush between the waves
Laughing at the clumsy clods of earth
That walk the land
That stand and point and picture you
With battery boxes and buttons
One moment there, the next gone
Vanishing with the tidal song
Sing it to me now
Let me hear as you now hear
Dive me deep beneath the surf
Till sky and sea merge
And I cannot tell my up from down
Until I drown
Sea water, saltwater, sacred water
I'll breathe the tears I cry
For one chance to follow you
For one chance to float beneath the summer moon
To eat my meals off soft belly
Chewed between flippered paws
Laughing like the Selkie