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