J. K. DURICK - DUN DUCHATHAIR, THE BLACK FORT THE ARAN ISLANDS

J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Social Justice Poetry, Record, Yellow Chair Review, Madswirl, and Haikuniverse.

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                      Dun Duchathair, the Black Fort
                                 The Aran Islands
 
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This is the mystery of place
The overlay of past events
The hint of time’s passing,
like a mist rising,
The whisper of things we miss
Of things to come,
Of things we have no part in,
the things that pass by without us.
 
That’s the appeal of this place
Why we’re here slipping on
The stones they carried, the lives
They led in their distance of time
Of ages we’ve turned into books
Books we’ve filled with our absence. 
That’s the charm of it.
 
This is the mystery of place
Of  place beyond us, outside the
Little bit of minor history we are
That minor bit we’ve smudged or
Polished, built walls for and stone
Staircases, pantries or dungeons --
Shabby battlements at best.
 
This is the mystery of this place
A place we attend to only now
As we step away from the single day
We’ve make of our lives and space.
Now we hear the screams of gulls,
The rumbling splash of waves,
And the tick of a place waiting, ready
to go on without us.