Alice O. Howell   

The Culdee

 

 

Yes, but I saved the rain for you

 

and the stones sentinel by Clogherhead

 

            minikin mosses hidden to the long north light

 

            coral roseate secrets

 

            so articulate

 

            only a cramped heart would notice

 

 

yes, and the grey wet of wind along sea cream beaches

 

the swinging sighs of clouds

 

dung hanging at the back of the cows

 

the beehive huts of the saints of lichen and turf

 

up in the bracken's supercession of

 

the five flapping towels of Liam Doherty's wife

 

            her palimpsests of patience

 

 

I paid the price in every sense

 

to climb pathless through the nettles

 

to sit stung in the empty doorway

 

of a soul fled fourteen hundred years

 

 

I conjured the Tir nan Og -

 

was he, the culdee, walking those Isles of the Blessed

 

now on young sensuous naked feet

 

bearing the stigmata of an earthly life

 

which nails us all?

 

 

I breathed deep the salt air

 

            a coarse benediction of aseptic tears

 

and sought for a streak of sun among the unfolded fronds -

 

            where were his prayers?

 

 

Dominus vobiscum my ancient, my most ubiquitous love!

 

yes, I prayed for emptiness

 

and that no one would go so lonely

 

            a stray gannet answered -

 

            out of the mists over to the Blaskets

 

            it came shearing, plummeting

 

            to the stretched and veined waters

 

it folded its wings

 

            and simply disappeared.

 

                                            a. o. howell

 

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