No headphones tonight, no chapter of Jane Eyre. All concentration on the road. My footsteps small as a child’s, big boots grapple for grip. Think back to where got sun today, and where didn’t. Listen for crunch. Admire but avoid all that glitters.
Treacherous all day and all evening the bend by the bins. I get stuck, one of the kids from the secondary school rescues me. Thereafter I stay within hand’s reach of the claí, the rough of the limestone as good to clutch as any rail.
Nearly silent.
A jet overhead, the moon makes a light sabre of its track across the sky. Going to Minnesota, so it is.
Low rumble of heating.
A cow in the distance.
I turn the corner and ascend the west village, and there I hear soft and gentle – as if trying not to make a fuss – the sea lapping softly off the shore at Trácht Each.
Cold coats my calves; two pairs of tights are little defence against that Arctic assembly and I go inside. But I’m not done with this night, I want to see more, so I pull up trousers and go back out. A neighbour turns out a light, and I have the night to myself. Not a soul stirring, not even a mouse.
Low pressure shows everything as closer; I could puck a sliotar to Clare from here, it looks that near. To the south, Loop Head – the old reliable – blinking bright as Venus. Clear sky, spéir ghlan, water as still as a screen. No ripple this night will wrinkle the moon’s radiance.
The sea the other side, to the north, is calm as silk and smooth as glass. Like a lake. The glow of Galway like fire in the night. Westward the silver lights of hundreds of Conamara homes. They’re mirrored by the sea, making for a sparkling spectacular. Behind, wind turbines clustered high up in the hills; their red lights dancing in the sky. The blinking and twinkling thins out around Inverrin, until the line of homes, shops, townlands fades to a single lamp, that of a lighthouse, sat as far west as west goes.
Nearer to home, over in Cill Rónáin, so still is the water, so bright the harbour lights, that reflection and illumination are fused in blazing pillars of fiery yellow.
Nearer again, at our own pier, street lights stand tall as soldiers, striping gold light across the the inlet. Other than that, down there there is no other light. Up here in my deserted station, there is just moon and stars and galaxies and the sweeping band of the Milky Way.
There’s cloud beginning to grow, if I look southwest – so I won’t. The cold snap ends tomorrow, rain resumes; the cleanness of the cold will be lost again. But for now, the moon keeps watch, lighthouses far and near wink to one another, white frosts dusts the ground and the tip of my nose tingles.
An app tells me I can see Jupiter.
I hope Jupiter can see this.
18ú Eanáir 2024.
doireann.ie 