From Kailas down to the Erne Estuary

From under the rag tree the world looks a kinder place.The dancing dreams and prayers of pilgrims are reminders of human soul before hopes and wishes became more pocket-dependent.




Rag Tree

A thousand dances for Patrick’s stone eyes:

leg-kicking
heel-tapping
thigh-slapping;

each rag a soul treading thin air.

A thousand advances on Patrick’s stone ears:

tongue-clicking
finger-snapping
hand-clapping;

each petition a guttering flare.







On The Slopes of Kailas


There are no
january pilgrims


On the slopes
of Kailas.


Buddha squats
oblivious


In his brilliant
white universe.


Ice-rigid
prayer rags


Dream away
the off-season.

Rag Trees and Holy Wells

St Kieran's Holy Well, Kilcar, Co Donegal




Holy wells and rag trees, the exotic places of the Irish countryside, have long ago joined the list of endangered species. Disappearing yearly under bulldozers or through abandonment, one day they will be irretrievably gone and yet another colour will have been lost from the rainbow of Irish culture.

St Patrick's Holy Well, Ballyshannon, Co Donegal

The Erne Estuary

I’m sitting beside a window full of the Erne Estuary. There’s not the slightest breeze. S-shaped, mirror-still, silvery grey. Shades of ivory, cream and seashell blend in curlicues out to the bar. Beyond there’s a stripe of charcoal and further out the narrow strip of brightness that marks the edge of the world.
By the side of the bay below the fields there is a rag tree before St Patrick’s grotto. On the algae-slimy rocks are small white crosses, the stations of the cross. On evenings like this when the smallest tick of nature can be heard in the briars and whitethorn bushes, it is an eerie but a wonderful place. You get that sense of being in your proper place within the flow of mankind that have lived along these banks since people first arrived into the west of Ireland; here at Ballyshannon, the oldest town in Ireland.