BURREN REQUIEM (In memory of my mother) I offer you a gentian bluer than the sky, the ocean, bluer even than your eyes. Windswept, your ancestors, my stone age forebears, climb with me the limestone headland to Cahir Dhuin Irghuis loose stones chiming magic summer notes. With sun-hot hands I offer you a ringing stone and remember your arms, reddened like mine, yours, strong enough to rescue a man drowning near Loop Head. I feel the force still behind the stinging slap -- some petty misdemeanour -- though you would have killed for me, your tribe. You had mother's dreams for me far from stark landscape where rain hollows into the rockbed of a soul. I plant stolen gentians on your grave and carve lime shards from Poulnabrone into a healing requiem. -- Eithne Cavanagh