Midwinter

At dusk, a great flare of winter lightning photographed the bay: Waves were broken scrolls.          Beyond Donegal, white mountains hung in a narrow bas-relief frozen on sky. Later, there was sleet: trees down on the Drumholm road; near Timoney’s farm, a frantic goose pinned under branches. All night long, we spoke of loneliness, long winter, while winter sang in the chimneys. Then the sky cleared and a marvel began: The hills turned blue; in the valley a blue cottage sent up the day’s first plume of smoke. It gathered like a dream drenched in frost. That should have been all.                           We had worn out night. But single-file,  deliberate,  five heifers,  a black bull,  three calves stepped  through the broken fence. They arranged themselves between the house and hedge: a kind of diagram: a shifting pattern grazing frozen weeds. Their image is with me still.               The backs of the cattle are patchy with frost blue as morning.