Deidra Greenleaf Allan: THE STONES OF WICKLOW

The car stops so I can get out. Crossing the black belt of highway that girdles these moors, I step onto the bog, whose thick moss pelt gives way beneath me as I climb. On the summit I find them, sitting atop a boulder, looking east over the low-breasted hills toward Mullaghcleevaun Mountain. The sky is bleak and ceremonial. Clouds cling to the crests as if unable to tear themselves away. In the eerie silence, only my labored breath and stumbling footsteps. Despite the commotion, their granite faces remain fixed on the horizon. I long to ask them what is theirs alone to know, to touch their old, grey lichened faces, but I am afraid to put my human scent upon them.

On this hilltop
no sound but the distant
car radio.

by Deidra Lyngard
Flourtown, Pennsylvania