Bicycle in August

The cow could jump over it -
a runaway dish, buttock big
hugging the tree-lined horizon -
I harvest this lunasa moon.

Spitting midges on the towpath;
cycling through intermittent puffs;
up the moon-river, my wind-rush
flickers down the evening hush.

Through a sudden midge-cloud
I clear a memory:
the setting of a timeless sun,
and light forever on far fields,
and Sammy Livingston, top-heavy,
thick-set with thigh waders
swaying through the swallows
up the Carrig-a-Brigi;

his rod and creel shoulder-strung,
slow pedalling in the fullness of time
all the evening long;
while vast reaches of endless sky
vault beyond Scalp and Eskaheen
in a moment's unbearable distance.