6 DECEMBER 1986, Page 47

A Stream

I imagine it starts somewhere Up there, among those mountain-cutters Shaping overhangs frozen to the royal Sky like photographs.

It ends where I stand, igniting The creek with its cobalt Floodlight underwater. The hinterland Is anyone's guess: perhaps upstream, In the yellow foothills, a mosque defines Its lonely piety Against the pure atmosphere, Where the women of the village Go hunchbacked under jugfuls of yoghurt Like baby dromedaries In the hot lock of the afternoon.

All insight stops where the eye loses The stream in the apricot trees And postcards come to mind of those women On the photogenic mountain, Washing clothes till their hands Blush in the water like strange fish.

Joseph O'Neill