Daniel P. Stokes has published poetry widely in literary magazines in Ireland, Britain, the U.S.A, Canada and Asia, and has won several poetry prizes. He has written three stage plays which have been professionally produced in Dublin, London and at the Edinburgh Festival.
San Juan
Today the strand’s invaded.
Groups commandeer a space
and set up camp.
They’re in their thousands.
Tomorrow’s the feast day of San Juan.
With tents being pitched
and boundaries staked
and hails and hollers
the noise is tactile. They’ve come -
I don’t know where they’ve come from –
to spend the night and party on the beach.
They’ve brought their stove, their food,
their drinks and their excitement.
Four bucks in pride erect a shack
with poles and palms macheted from the cliff.
A woman on her knees nearby,
her youngest perched beside her,
boils a pot outside her tent
and hums in Spanish.
Work, routine and discretion
have been long-leashed. It’s Fiesta.
A call – no, a command, a summons -
to gather in communal expectation
and let the moment for the moment
eclipse all other aims.
I pack my books and leave them to it.
Their revelry, like open prayer,
is done in public
to satisfy a private whim
that isn’t mine. The bells
above the ruckus mark out midday
and I have rites and rituals of my own.
No comments:
Post a Comment