Saturday, August 02, 2014

Saint Brigid’s Night Procession (Poem) by Mark Granier



Night Walk by Elizabeth McClung
Saint Brigid’s Night Procession

No sign of Faughart on the roadmap. Our dark
island kept itself to itself, each high-hedged bóthar
headlit, the same as another. Then, out of nowhere,
it came to us as a long-acre of parked cars
we added to. Nothing for it now but to go
with the cattle-press of the procession, its shuffle
a low-voiced, slow, inevitable river uphill.

Nobody minded us, disbelievers suspended in the flow
of candles and wobbly torch-beams. Our wariness lapsed,
shrinking as the night-eye opened. Through an unhedged
                                                                            gap,
a softly trumpeted, familiar tune doodled
across clouded moonfields. Forgotten, remembered:
Faith of Our Fathers. As if it wasn't “if” but “when”.
And your whisper in my ear: “Were going to Heaven.”

                                       Mark Granier


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