St Féichín's Warning

As hare – whiskers taut, eyes bulging –

he scours the mainland

in the grey hour of evening

when demons go searching for currency.

Sitting sentinel on day’s shore-line,

grabbing at the seen and the half-seen,

reining in phantasms,

deciphering the commotions of molecules,

he senses, suddenly, a juddering in the air

from around 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 clonk, strange at this hour,

draws shadowy figures out of the night

into a bedraggled huddle

standing anxiously in the sanctuary of the church.

.

Féichín, with one last tug on the rope,

and hare’s wild gaze in his eyes,

turns to them gravely

to announce the arrival of Satan on Omey.

And on that ominous note, happy new year. 

St Feichín Takes His Followers To Omey

Continuing adventures of St Feichín of Omey:

St Feichín Takes His Followers To Omey

Feichín in the wooded Glen of Fore

declared that men must shun trees,

‘for’, said he, ‘sinners thrive where rain

does not flay the hides of men.’

 ‘Let us go to Omey where trees have shrivelled to stone,

where thorns are the sea driven ahead of wild winds

and skies of  gorse will lash our backs.

Let us go far from trees who throw their shade on our repentance.’

So they built their monastery on the island

where the winds rode in on the dragons of the ocean,

where the rains fell incessantly, nails, even out of  a clear winter’s night

and their ears rang with the booming of souls drowning in eternity.