St Feichín Takes His Followers To Omey
Let us leave the wooded Glen of Fore,
for men must shun trees;
their lives be lived in the full gaze of Heaven;
to Omey where trees are shrivelled to the earth,
and thorns are the ocean driven on wild winds,
gorse to lash our backs. Let us go far from these trees
that conceal our transgressions.
And they went to Omey, leaving the gentle Glen of Fore;
built their monastery among the sand dunes
where the winds rode the dragons of the ocean,
and the rains were nails;
as the granites were hump-backed on the shore,
so were they
beneath the charcoal sacks of the sky.
But if they forsook the bountiful harvests of the Glen of Fore,
the Lord lavished them with fish for their tables,
shellfish, seaweed and they were blessed
and in the dim light of their church, they sang
to the glory of their Provider;
and still asked that they might bear greater hardships,
for the sins of others weighed heavy on them.
And if, in sleep, they dreamed themselves back in the Glen of Fore
feasting on deer, boar, pheasant and grouse,
come morning they purged their night’s gluttony, kneeling
hours naked in the freezing tide and waiting for the end of day
to marvel again at the light of Heaven
as the sun sank beyond the edge of the ocean
and the splendour of God was manifest on the island of Omey.
