Behind Bull Island
by DS Maolalai
it’s incredible;
low tides rolling
out behind bull
island. a thick duvet
being pulled off a bed.
and if you don’t look
often, you expect just rocks
and crabs scuttling — instead
of this sloping mess
and gently jagged green,
like somebody’s broken
and thrown away a pool table.
seagulls which swoop
and long necked
wading birds — a whole
ecosystem! on the road
with the wind right
you could be looking at fields in africa
or the wild american plain.
not at the rags of a beach
beside dublin — grass
out the window of an airplane
with no abandoned streetsigns, no
traffic cones, or poisonous,
stinking muck.
PHOTO: Sunny day on the beach of Bull Island, Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Artur Kosmatka, used by permission.
NOTE: Bull Island, located in Dublin Bay, Ireland, measures about three miles long and a half-mile wide. The island, with a sandy beach running its length, is an inadvertent result of long-standing efforts in the bay to combat silting. The island lies within the jurisdiction of, and is mostly owned by, Dublin City Council. A car-free zone and accessible by several walking bridges, Bull Island has the highest number of designations in Ireland as a National Bird Sanctuary, a biosphere reserve, a National Nature Reserve, a Special Protection Area under the EU Birds Directive, and a Special Area of Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive. The island holds a wide variety of plant and bird species, and a limited range of mammals, as well as one reptile, one amphibian, and a modest range of invertebrates.
PHOTO: Dollymount, Bull Island bridge, Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Armen Sarkissian.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).
POETRY and PLACES 