The Mountainy Singer

Dead oakleaves everywhere
Under my feet,
Filling the forest air
With odours sweet.

Acorns, three, four and five,
Falling apace.
Thank God I am alive
This day of grace!

A NIGHT PRAYER

Pray for me, Seachnal,
Pray for me, Mel:
Save me from sin
And the cold stone of hell!

Brigid and Ita
And Eithne the Red,
Spread out your mantles
And cover my bed!

For rann and gospel
Have gone from my mind,
And devils are walking
Abroad in the wind!

I AM THE MOUNTAINY SINGER

I am the mountainy singer,
And I would sing of the Christ
Who followed the paths thro’ the mountains
To eat at the people’s tryst.

He loved the sun-dark people
As the young man loves his bride,
And he moved among their thatches,
And for them he was crucified.

And the people loved him, also,
More than their houses or lands,
For they had known his pity
And felt the touch of his hands.

And they dreamed with him in the mountains,
And they walked with him on the sea,
And they prayed with him in the garden,
And bled with him on the tree.

Not ever by longing and dreaming
May they come to him now,
But by the thorns of sorrow
That bruised his kingly brow.

THE RAINBOW SPANNING A PLANET SHOWER

The rainbow spanning a planet shower,
The sloe in berry, the flax in flower.

The scholar’s satchel, the beggar’s staff,
The ploughman’s whistle, the tinker’s laugh.

The stranded hooker, the breaking wave,
The sunrise gilding the carn of Medb.

The strength of mountains, the swiftness of wind
Blowing over the leagues behind.

The hot lips sealing the spoken word,
The song in gentle places heard.

The wildgoose trumpeting in the blue,
The postcar stuck in a drift of snow.

The bogslide moving, the seaward leap,
The cry, the townland whelmed in sleep.

The sock on the anvil, the thread in the loom,
The Host on the altar, the child in the womb.

The wayside murder, the whispered name,
The hanging body, the hidden shame.

And more – if you but listen and look —
In this, my elemental book!

I WILL GO WITH MY FATHER A-PLOUGHING

I will go with my father a-ploughing
To the green field by the sea,
And the rooks and the crows and the seagulls
Will come flocking after me.
I will sing to the patient horses
With the lark in the white of the air,
And my father will sing the plough-song
That blesses the cleaving share.

I will go with my father a-sowing
To the red field by the sea,
And the rooks and the gulls and the starlings