Irish seals

When we got to Pulpit Rock yesterday

Following our diminishing path,

We passed some young women

And my son said he didn't like their smell.

I, who did not smell them, asked the obvious:

What did they smell like?

They smell like dryer sheets.

And I wondered, in passing,

How could I have missed that?

With grass sweeping our ankles

We descended

Around the orange-lichened ledges

To the rocks above where,

If the seals are there, they are going to be,

Instead of composing myself on a familiar rock

I decided to keep climbing down as far as I could

To where there is a drop off.

First there were no seals

And then there were.

With their large shiny heads watching

I took out my harmonica and played for them

A little Irish jig that I made up on the spot

Because the majority of seals

Are of Irish descent.