Lough Eske, carelessly thrown beneath the Bluestacks;
if my mother was
here, she’d say ‘pick that up, fold it and put it away.’
And how do you think
Lough Eske would look folded into a rectangle?
‘Tidy’ she’d
say (I’m doing her a disservice mentioning her here),
but tidier still
behind an interpretive centre with paved walkways,
playground, benches,
coffee shop, garbage bins, signposts,
parking spaces for
buses, tourism statistics on an ever-ascending curve,
local politicians
queuing for photographs beside ‘Lough Eske Recreation Park’.
International
Conferences, brochures, signposts to the future:
Namibian Dune-Surfing, Amazonian Canopy Adventures;
the whole wild world
folded into neat tidy rectangles;
explorers lined up
three-deep at the ticket kiosk.
