Remember when we took my father’s four-berth Fiat Ducato camper
to Brandon Point on that cloudless August evening?
We packed a picnic and a cooler of cheap white and watermelon
and parked between daisy dotted farmland and the Atlantic alive one million feet below.
In the distance was the New York City of my dreams
where I’m a published writer and we rent
a Brownstone apartment of that Manhattan style you see in sitcoms.
From the mass rock-like jutting boulder on the cliff edge I imagined
St. Brendan setting about his search for Paradise in a curragh
ballasted by both belief and reasoning.
The sun beyond Clare set on time but promised
to rise again for us and us alone.
And so, as we drank and ate through the night,
we kept dreaming lambs and shy waves for comfort;
the stars above tiny pinholes through which
new day peeked.
When the sun rose, you got as close as you could
so that you might see its marionettist
bobbing that bulb with two fingers.
It burnt on and I wondered how its strings didn’t snap and drop
it into the water; steam becoming clouds becoming pillows.
You turned and asked what I would do if this was the end of the world
and I said I wished it was, for everything in that moment was so perfect.
And from our rock alter I imagined again way off among the cobalt waves,
rowing into the amber sky,
St. Brendan on his voyage to find Paradise,
thinking if that was all he ever wanted,
he never had to leave.
-end-
all words are mine. if you enjoyed the piece, let me know.
Gene Murphy Writer 
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