We were a class of school boys, taken away to the west
on one of those very rare field trips.
The excuse was to visit the grave of
Peig Sayers
and to see the area of Ireland that she had lived in, a small headland tucked between the mainland of
Kerry and the slate cold
Atlantic.
Running loose in
Dingle 16 year old boys getting drunk and I was the only bloody sober one.
Later that night we strode down to the beach. High in the
dunes
the waves washed in out of sight and the we were perched at the edge of the world.
Above the stars, nothing but the stars and I swore that I felt the
Earth turn beneath me, spinning in the heavens.
All the old friends gone now, the old insecurities sought, fought and overcome. I look out at a different shore,
another country and another
ocean, but the same stars sit in
my mind, turn above me.
That night on the beach I decided to study
astronomy and 10 years later still seem to be doing so.