It was a game we played on sunny Irish afternoons

when we had nothing planned but adventure,

taking us to magical, unknown places,

places we’d never seen, probably never heard of,

but were just there, in the unseen corner of nature’s eye.

 

It was a simple game. Just point the car down the road

and go. That’s it. But then came the decisions. Next left,

second turn to the right; totally random, no peeking at maps.

We found farmyards that way; dead ends, unpaved tracks,

Places where we had to reverse for miles to get out.

 

But we stumbled on beaches, deserted and perfect,

with sand that was pristine, marked only by worm casts

and tracks of seagulls round stranded seaweed.

And we would walk sea-scented shores, let waves swirl

over wriggled toes, maybe even swim there.

 

Inland, we were surprised by loughs, hidden amongst

anonymous hills, guarded by rushes and boggy approaches

that would suck shoes right off your feet. But framing the water,

the spectacular vision of heather, bog cotton, sedge,

sundew and sphagnum moss paid for the trip a thousandfold.

 

There’d be wayside shrines with plaster saints,

in the middle of nowhere, blessing the journeys,

on countless roads we could never find again, but still

remember, where beauty was not mapped or planned,

but simply there, waiting to be discovered.