Go to the Stones

Beltany Stone Circle
Beltany Stone Circle

WHEN THE SOUL THIRST IS ON YOU GO TO THE STONES

Ah, the still-standing stones, 

the cromlechs and dolmens,

our bygone world’s bones,

buffed by twenty thousand seasons,

while your heart, mo chuisle, 

is buffeted, pain-pockmarked, 

your soul is forsaken, and you, 

a bewildered wanderer, 

are lost from home.

 

The soul-thirst compels you to thresholds of thin places.

The indweller calls on you to cast aside confines of concrete, 

shuck off handcuffs of time, 

tear down citadels of inherited ideas,

brick by brick, clump by clod,

emerge through strata of impositions 

of others’ ways.

 

You’ll know what was true before popes prescribed patriarchy,

penitence, penance, and parrot-prayers –

before foreign thrones proscribed custom, culture and cainteori

before the old ways shorn and scattered.

 

Choirs of stones shall chant their tunes

and you’ll know their sumptuous melodies.

Cascades of stones shall wind-throw words 

and you’ll know their perfect fluency.

You’ll hear exposition broadcast 

under a sea-scented dusk

as the blanket of belonging 

rolls out across muted meadows

with the tenderness of a Brehon mother –

wrapping you in wildness,

swaddling you in ancient.

 

First Published by Silver Apples in Writepace Brick by Brick Anthology 2024

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