A hare, whiskers taut, eyes bulging,
scouring the mainland
in the grey hour of evening
when demons go searching for souls.
Sitting sentinel on day’s shoreline,
digesting the seen and the half-seen,
reining in phantasms,
deciphering commotions in the air.
He senses, suddenly, a juddering of molecules,
some looming presence,
an approaching darkness darker than night,
and an ice-bolt hits him.
With the flesh creeping along his flanks,
he kicks back his hind legs
and bounds through the tussocks,
to the church in the hollow.
The bell’s baleful clank, strange at this hour,
draws shadowy figures out of the night
into a bedraggled huddle
in the sanctuary of the church.
Feichín, now man,
the hare’s wild gaze still in his eyes,
turns to them gravely
to announce the arrival of Satan on Omey.
It is not just his works,
but the devil himself will walk among us;
be wary of every soul on the road,
every animal in the fields.
Speak the name Jesus at every turn,
a flail to his ears;
let your minds be tabernacles of the Lord
so he finds no space for evil there.
Feichín’s brethren left no soil
on which the seed of evil could be sown,
no patch of ground to build a hut;
made Omey inhospitable to him who rules Hell;
and so it is to this day.
It was as hare, Feichín saw Satan leave the island,
felt the agitation fall from the air,
and the twitchiness in his nose subsided.
