Night’s paling azurite horizon <br />cloaked in a gossamer veil of clouds <br />briefly contests the sunrise <br />thus allowing nights last stars <br />some fickle final twinkling <br />before dwindling from sight <br /> <br />But the Sun has promises to keep <br />a rendezvous with day <br />already marked as tardy <br />by screeching of gulls and gannets <br />which orchestrate impatient puffin jigs <br /> <br />Sunbeams breach the clouds <br />gathering strength on far horizon <br />they surf the ridges of distant waves <br />gilding each crest in turn <br />in the race to meet the shore <br /> <br />Light pools around Skellig Michael <br />and creates a magic floating island <br />briefly trapped between sea and sky <br />mysterious as monks <br />now lost in mists of time <br /> <br />My glimpse being but a pale shadow <br />snatched from distant flattened shore <br />leaves me envious almost <br />of those who contemplated in solitude <br />centuries of such miraculous dawns <br /> <br /> <br />Reader’s note: Skellig Michael, also known as Great Skellig, is a steep rocky island about 16 kilometres off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. It is the larger of the two Skellig Islands. A celtic monastery, which is situated almost at the summit of the 240-metre-high rock, was built in 588, and became a World Heritage Site in 1996. My own meager experience of this glorious sunrise (from distant flattened shore) comes only by way of viewing the program ‘Sunrise Earth’ on Discovery HD Theater.<br /><br />Mary Havran<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sunrise-at-skellig-michael/
