A seagull, glides overhead, a hungry ghost between worlds,
she drops something stone-like into the lochén, a pebble from Malahide perhaps?
A childs soul, lost in the shadows since the famine, finally returning home.
I am a hermit. God knows, I ring the bells at first light and flocks of seagulls bark at me from the cliffs of Moher; they steal away, over the blood shot corrugations.
I pull the chime rope and dream of the stone city; campfires on escarpments; walled gardens and white blossomed orchards; a fisherman casting his net, dusk holding his silhouette like a mother caressing her newborn.
A young shepherd sleeps, as a wolf watches from the brow of a hill;
dawn breaks and two of his flock are missing, the boy cries in prayer
and never sleeps as deeply again, until, at 88, he rests; forever smiling, content, he has done his job well.
Jude, freckles on her nose; a ponytail and sun-kissed eyes, was my first love.
A bittersweet rhapsody, possesses my soul when I think of her; although only for a peal, a clang and a reel, her memory then fades, with the om mani padme hum of the bells, reverberating, thunder over Glengarra wood, before time existed.
I walk the orchard everyday, giving thanks to the blessed virgin and all the angels and saints;
While clouds tiptoe past, like grains of white sand through an hourglass,
Marking time from east to west, north to south;
Outside the chapel, a garden of wild flowers perfume the portico; I escape the sun here.
Descartes, the crow, lands on Manahoy's tombstone and rebukes me:
"Why are you so afraid of the heat?
You humans are weak compared to crows.
And why live alone?"
"What can I say Descartes? You are right.
Though I hurt no one.
I clear away the worms and ants from the path, to avoid treading on them, accidentally. I eat only vegetables and fruit.
I pray for all life, and all those who suffer." Descartes listens, then, seeing a worm squirm over Manahoy's epitaph, he pounces and swallows the worm whole.
"Humans are weak!" He squawks, "compared to crows!"
Sometimes, at the end of days, I head down to the Lochén. The willow depletes her frowning leaves on the still water,
As the seagulls, who glide by so silently at night, again, drop souls into the lake.
Always, one by one.
I see them, shimmering,
Pure light, rising into a mist, breath like,
blessing the air at dawn,
I pull the chime rope for all those who wait, still;
In the cotton thread of shadows and the soft sway of pines.
