Pilgrimage 2010
In 1997 I wrote a series of poems inspired by the weekly pilgrimage around Iona. In last weeks visit I decided it was time to re-visit that idea and see what a new version might look like. Once a few more of the group have posted their photographs on flikr I may well illustrate the poem with some pictures - but for now I will let the words stand on their own.
Pilgrimage 2010
Warm welcome is piped,
our departure sung,
and onlookers stand in curious gaze.
We have lost count
of heavens deft touch
and the delicate way earth responds.
Open silent walls,
Yet sisters tell tales
and remember scented flowering verbs.
We heard Sophia’s
affirming new voice
and tread silently, silently on.
At the meeting place
a people worked hard,
and parted for distant new found land shores.
Our race died here
or else embraced life
moving past the place of no return.
Following waymarkers
over hidden stones
and a misty uncertain horizon.
Tell old stories
to seek a new cause,
soaring beyond imagination.
Idle rusted tool
hides joyful primrose
and rich veined marble shards wait to be gleaned.
Unseen work stands
at nations centre
and heads homeward as loving token.
At Columba’s bay
tiny cairn is built
and a well worn myth climbs inviting cliffs.
We are made new
with un-thrown stones
carried boldly into mission’s soul.
Conversation flows,
languages collide
a coloured stranger is wasted unused.
Enrichment stalls
fresh life is ungiven,
we say prayers and sup Adam’s clear Ale.
At the barbed runrig,
pure pleasure is clubbed,
and natural returns as farms decline.
We have made chains
and broken old links
singing new songs of justice and faith.
Hilltop look out post
mountaintop echoes
crying for well remembered dreams lived out.
Not in wild currents,
but in chuckling song
and blithe reply to prodigal reign.
Silently
bog-step
gate-close
insect-hum
wrapped in a mantle
of whisper.
Ancestors dancing
James and Isa
Dan and Annie
Helen, Betty
Morag and Barbara
Naming our saints
Piping our welcome
Singing our heavenly touch.
News comes slowly here
and a wee girl dances
as Mum sings of unmourned detainees.
Innocent hope
welcomes fresh future
even as death stalks friend and stranger.
And we turn inland,
to life left behind,
renewed somehow in a quick sideways glance.
Clearing poetry
Shaking images
of grace-filled welcome at stranger’s gate.
© Craig Muir 2010
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