Encroaching onto the landscape

In leisure

                     Forgetful of the Gods

                              Blood

      Hardship

                   Famine

How those soul-sodden fields must detest us

The After-Mass Men

Remember those figures by the church wall 

Sculpted in after-mass conversations:

Blather-tattooed men

That hung there by their jackets;

Museums with pockets,

Pockets full of knives, pipes and matches.

Stone men:

Pre-Christians defiling Sabbaths

With their Saturday conversations.

Gargoyles:

Coats would be wrapped against them

As though they were sudden showers of hail.

The Angel and St Feichín

Readers of my blog will be getting familiar with St Feichín by now; I, myself, have taken a great fondness to this 7^th century Irish saint. 

He’s got all the powers of a super-hero without the noise of contemporary technology around him; he’s the perfect, early Christian, Jedi master. But better than that, he had all the wonderful traits: abstinent, pleasant, charitable, powerful, emaciated, just-worded, honest, pious, rich in sense, godly, affectionate, discreet, opportune, wise, prayerful………………………………………………..( from a medieval document via a seventeenth century rewriting); yet he was wonderfully contrary, when called back to confront St Ciaran, he walked backwards so as not to look him in the face. And, guess what, he died from a plague, he himself called down.

So here's my version of his call to convert the pagans of Omey.

The Angel and St Feichín

One night a very large bird settled on the roof of the cell in which St Feichín was sleeping; this event occurred at Easdara in the present day County Sligo.

Still there at dawn, the brilliance of the early sun reflecting off its magnificent plumage caused a crowd to gather. And as the morning progressed the crowd swelled further, to such a size, in fact, that their tumult distracted the saint who was at the time in a transport brought on by the deepest meditation. And so, it was not with little annoyance that he emerged from his hut to inquire as to why such a large crowd had gathered in that spot.

When the extraordinary bird saw Feichín, it started up a jabbering that amazed all those who were there. Feichín, for his part, recognizing the bird as a gannet, and knowing that they never travelled so far inland, moved closer to listen and soon found himself conversing in a language, the like of which he had no previous knowledge.

All marvelled at the bird: its gleaming white plumage, the extent of its wings whose span was greater than the width of the cell, the fierce grey eyes which never ventured from the saint’s face, its insistent natter.

The conversation continued for two hours; an engagement between man and bird that had the mouths of all present gaping like the black caves in the hills to the south. Never once were they deflected by the milling of the crowd around them nor stop to wet their throats nor, even once, did the flow of their communication wane.

And then, quite suddenly, around noon, to the amazement of all, the gannet rose with a great pumping of its wings, followed by Feichín who rose from the ground like a leaf gathered up in a gale. Into the sky, side by side, growing smaller and smaller, eventually two black dots like stars that went out, the gannet and Feichín disappeared into the clouds travelling in a southwest direction.

All those that gathered fell to their knees and, as one voice, emitted a howling that was partly extolment of the greatness of God and Feichín, partly lamentation at the taking of their saint.

But it was that same day that Feichín landed on the brightly flowered sward of Omey, and it is since that day that the people of Omey have their faces turned to the one God.

Flight Mechanism

I found a bird

dismantled;

a pair of wings,

still feathered,

on an axis of miniature bones.

Only yesterday,

this anatomical array

imparted the capability of flight.

Head, legs, belly

removed;

I found it,

like a daVinci investigation,

a perfect isolation of the relevant parts.

Peninsula

A peninsula: shingle, cockle and barnacle shells, strips of desiccated wrack,

greened with sea-holly. The wooden cabin, though frequently lashed with spray,

was salted dry, and coloured somewhere between bone and limestone;

I lived there for five months before you came.

From the land our light seemed no more than a single candle burning;

the clothes on our line had the appearance of  rags,

and the smoke from our fire curled into the sky with a nonchalance

that suggested our daily struggles with lighting washed up timbers.

You’ll remember the shingle made walking difficult; with each step the stones rolled.

You said it sounded like the grinding of a mouth full of loose teeth; but, around the bay,

 a billion stones rolled thunderously with each beached wave;

and the  breeding terns came at us like boomerangs.

Nights: we were  unlit stars perhaps, but at one with the universe, free and alive

 in the unbroken expanse of shore, sea and sky; we had  space

 to be colossal, to exhilarate; and moonlight, our spotlight to roar songs into the cosmos,

to take the universe’s light into our eyes and exult in it.

Came the day of migration: wings outstretched, muscles fluid, necks craned to our separate
destinations; we, without backward glances, took to the air

with eyes big enough to countenance the curve of the earth, greedy enough to fly it;

and left our peninsula, a finger  pointing to somewhere .

Inheriting The Land.

  Emigration seems to be a never-ending feature of Irish life. This poem  is rooted in the Ireland of my childhood.  The boat then had the effect a little death for those left behind.

Inheriting The Land.

Here the sea is no more than a sigh in a shell,

conversations speed past, pole high, Dublin to Galway

and music is the wind whistling beneath a door.

Slightness describes Summer's step,

stonework its skies; a little light drips

from its edges but it's falling from a miser's hand.

Across the fields the church, within its necklace

of dead congregations, is a rusty hinge;

a place filled with a century's stillness.

And the ivy-choked trees lean closer together

like old men guessing at each others' words.

If you were to fly over these patchwork hills,

along the hedgerows and through the lightless haggarts,

you'd never meet a soul. The old farmers are sitting

in their twilight kitchens, their families standing

on the mantelpiece in the other room that's never used

with faces tanned beneath American skies.

Only the din of crows seeps into that silence;

crows more numerous than leaves on the sycamores,

always bickering, hogging the light,

building their cities, staking their inheritance.

Still Safari

‘Like Noah’s ark, all the wildlife used to come to this waterhole;

elephant, zebra, impala, warthog, baboon, even the lions;

what an amazing sight it was!’

‘The display boards are positioned exactly where the animals,

all different species, used to drink side by side. Of course,

it would have been dangerous to stand where you’re standing right now.’

‘The photographs are from 2019; the film in the centre from the 1970s;

not long ago, you can see the decline in population. The recreations are brilliant;

don’t forget to get the photograph of your head in the lion’s mouth.’

The Well

                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Holy well at Killargue, Co Leitrim

The Well

I have left my hopes for the future dancing in a tree,

a tree growing on solid rock.

The bottom of the well is a mosaic of shining coins,

each a beacon for someone’s dream.

Where gods immemorial have changed water to verdure,

there is the place to sow a seed.

Dread of an Apparition

The Dread of an Apparition

The most effective means
of avoiding a death fright
by apparition
might have been my blanket
but for the thinness of its cover
and the need to obey
Heaven's commands
which do not stop at blankets.
The problem was Mary's
predilection for teens
and my undoubted piety.
Therefore I can say
without any hesitation,
my earliest plans to reject Catholicism,
thereby putting myself
safely beyond the fence,
were due to apparitions;
their lightning
and ghastly messages. 





                                 

Cruise Missiles

           

Jesus, the padre prayed,

direct these missiles onto the heads

of our enemies.

Except that’s not what he said. He said

we pray that these missiles will be efficient

in their function.

Then. Up Jesus,

ride them clean down their throats.

Except, of course, he didn’t say that either;

but blessed them with holy water.

After that, the missiles were dispatched,

American missionaries to Europe.

St Féichín arrives on High Island

It is recounted in the Annals of the Ciarraige Aí that St Féichín, having been  invited back to Connacht to convert the people of Omey, one day said to the elders that he had experienced a vision in which God directed him to build a church on an island out beyond; where the fires of hell nightly sinks down into the sea.

It is said that he led a group of monks followed by the people of Omey down to the shore, from where he proceeded to walk into the tide. The monks followed him, wading waist-deep into water, beseeching him to turn back, but he refused. Never once looking back, never once turning his face from a point somewhere out on the horizon, he ploughed onward into waves, leaving his half-bodied, distraught followers looking after him with tears, hidden by the spray, streaming down their faces.

It was at the precise moment his head disappeared beneath the waves that they saw him lifted out the water, fully upright and heading still in the direction he had chosen.  He walked on rounded, smooth rocks that seemed to materialise with each step he took, and in this way walked onward, out from Omey, even though it was a rough and unpleasant sea.

They watched him grow small and smaller as he walked over the waves; many felt he was leaving them, but a cry went up and crowds ran to the currachs, dragged them out onto the water and followed him.

Four miles he walked, through surging seas and blinding spray. The currachs following him, tossed light as splinters on the waves, voices travelling fitfully over the din, spume carried horizontally into the faces of the monks and oarsmen. Rain was hail in their faces; cloud, sky and ocean their only visible destination; but they kept rowing.

It is believed that when Féichín arrived at the sheer face of High Island, a stone leapt into the air so he stepped directly onto dry land.

The weather eased, a hemisphere of calm settled on the grass-roofed rocks. And as the currachs entered into the shelter, they saw him on a cliff-top, a five-pointed star exulting in the emerging evening light, the sun from behind the clouds:fingers of God radiating around him.

The oars lifted from the waters drained streams like spittle back into the sea; gannets were easing along the thermals, and Féichín had the eyes of Omey on him.

The Beginning of Science

Long before Saint Patrick,

leather-footed musicians

would keyhole dawn

to catch the sun in ice candles.

They played those flames on strings,

their spikes of sound,

for children’s whistling eyes and lunatics,

who, in their distance, danced.

Fire caged in ice, ice in their hand;

music lit from within;

ambition began;

separation became a beauty.

Saint Féichín's Prayer on High Island *

Between the troubled sea and fickle sky,

this island barely more than raft,

this church a mast,

and you, my Lord, Jesus Christ, the sail

delivering us from monsters

that daily beset us in our voyage.

I strap myself to this stone, consecrated

with your cross and invite my penance:

flails lifted from the swell, nails

You spit to cleanse us.

I present myself, a rag on a thorn,

a cold flame awaiting the warmth of Your forgiveness.


*Saint Féichín founded a monastery on this tiny, remote island off the Galway coast in 634. There are some photographs at  http://www.earlychristianireland.net/Counties/galway/high_island/

Failing Light

In the failing light of a November evening,

kicking through the rotting leaves on a suburban path,

I remember you, digging the garden ridges, shaking out

the groundsel, tossing the stones under the hedge.

Great events in your kingdom were scurryings in the grass,

a thrush feeding on a worm, raindrops falling from the apple trees.

Far from inspectors and reports, you held sway over

the straightening of ridges, regiments of onions and lettuces.

With each passing year, you are buried deeper beneath memory,

becoming ever more intangible, like these rotting leaves

that leave only their scent hanging in the dank November air;

after all this time, you have become more like a book I once read.

Under the Bridge

I sat under the bridge, our old den;

flung out a net to catch memories,

and sat watching the water’s  steely

mail grind past. It was cold, 


and I would not have chosen to sit there 

at this time of year;  life is miserly

to those who want a moment; I needed to stop,

 to look back, to feel my belonging.

Oh yes, I pulled in some cold fish;

 cold for their distance, estrangement; 

and cold too  for recognizing, as the years flow,

 the emptied out treasure chests of childhood.