by Edmund Buckley
- When the evening's light proceeds to
fall,
and the stars are all on show,
the amber torches on the mountain range
are set alight, while headlamps twist and turn,
ascending the hillside of his fields and scattered settlement
that reside on his reptile skin. It cannot be seen, but he expands and contracts,
as the mountain snake awakes and breathes.
In the bygone Hell Fire Club they have conspired,
t summon the eternal slumbering beast.
They intrude on his rest, permitting his vermilion glare
to ignite the shadows of the misty night.
The ruthless dragon writhes his dark green-scaled skin round and round,
tearing roots and wires, releasing himself from the centuries of pain
on his charade of earthly hide.
Over hills and towns, in a far cry land,
pagan spirits are carried on the wind
to alert the mountain martyr. Unprevailed, they
surge to the barren mountain's ear, and whispers of tender urgency
wake the sleeping spirit who guards the deep and treacherous Lough.
His mossy eyelids begin to rumble,
as they turn out of sight into the wild earth.
The stars pierce his phosphorous eyes
as if a mortal army fired an array of tiny arrows.
He recalls the sharp ripping beaks that tore his flesh
that formed his valleys and glens,
the immortal spirit of Cúchulainn is brought
to defend his land from the eternal pestilent dragon.
Through the night the dragon dances through the dark air,
to drown the revolting community of trotting feet and thumping posts
in the great Lough he knew from his meandering youth,
before his crimes of pillaging had him set to earth and stone.
Over rock and glen he winds in slimy symmetry,
to fulfil his ancient intention.
laying motionless the mountain lets on he is not awake,
and awaits the snake.
He hears a resonant shrill and knows the time is near,
twitching his Achilles, he supports his mass of forest and foliage
under his thick tree rooted arm and climbs to his feet,
scraping the boundaries of the sky.
In sinister motion, the dragon breathes his scorching fiery breath,
igniting the soldier's wooden arms, extinguished
gradually, by the heavy pouring rain.
He unsheathes his sword of stone, and slices the giant snake in two.
The vermilion glow fades and the amber torches fade from light,
as the great dragon falls to the earth.
In his cindering arms he takes the mere worm through woods and villages
to the deep crevice where Three Rock lay.
A thousand pagan spirits chant
and he is set to rest again,
forever-in stone and clay.
