Reposting: Back to Rome (Written in the kitchen at The Lodge, 5 AM, Inis Mor, May, 2019)

As pilgrims,
No matter what our intention,
We never meant to stay.
My pillow, with the face of a wolf,
Watches me refill my mug.
My broken wing hangs limp,
My dreams of flight
Channeling through this pen.


Thankfully, gratefully,
(By god!) I am here again!
(But why say "again",
When everything is whispering
That being away on this pilgrimage
Is only a dream?)


Across the point of return (or no return)
Beyond the graveyard
Where 120 saints are buried,
In single file, we, four of us,
Cross the furthest patch of green,
Moss cushioning our tread,
Reminding us of how close we are
To the dead!
(And I, imagining
That we might have been saints ourselves
A mere 1200 years ago!)


Rabbits vanish just ahead
On their wee indented paths
That cross and recross
This all-too-human transit
While an old one watches
From the threshold of his hole
As he has, no doubt,
Watched so many pilgrims
Cross before.
He sits like a rock that rolled from a wall,
His ears flat back.
He'll never trust us,
But he trusts that we will soon be gone.


Our leader shows us where to sit to say
Our water-blessings
Mingling with the salt spray.
Already the distance is muting the thunder
Of the waves
Crashing on the rocks of Inis Meain.
Or is the muting just a sign
Of my withdrawal from this memory,
As my focus returns to the kitchen
This morning of our departure and
Our return to Rome.