The West

He asked me if I would like to see the photos
He had taken when back there
That warm blue-skied summer
How could I say no;

So there they were
Slow gentle cattle standing on the beach
Moving amongst the same
Fine golden sand

I had been buried in as a child,
With the beckoning sea pulling behind
Towards a promising land
And so too those greens
Rapture of emerald-scented grasses
Atlantic blown
Dotted with inscrutable, curly-horned rams
I heard a sax give his tune to the ocean
And through it all

Ran the hard, dappled grey
Walls of stone men had made

They fenced nothing in
And yet let nothing really out