No Need to Be Strong

Storm Drawings is a storm poem, a description of the beach nearby where now, you could make a seaweed salad with what the storm’s tossed up.

Seaweed Salad – Storm Poem

During the storm,
the hustling sea coughed up
rocks, seaweed and sand,
and now on the beach,
grainy algae storylines,
running the length of the cove,
peppered with flat-leaf parsley.

The thing about foraging is this:
The forager is always fortunate,
like this one who’s gathering
sea vegetables, dulse, carrageen, sea thong,
and “Irish Wakame”, he says to himself
“is sure to impress the finest of diners.”

Indeed, the tempest has impressed
soggy kelp and rocky mountains
with wavey valleys in between.
Some stories need telling,
seeds and smells bustling out,
pencilling strokes of Irish moss
and seaweed salad.

During the storm,
the lights went out in the village
torches, candles and turf fires
inside and then
yarns unspun hustled from within
and coughed up onto the kitchen table.
When the power returned, graffiti on the wall.