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Poems of Celtic Spirituality
Kenneth StevenKenneth lives in Dunkeld in Perthshire. He is not only a poet, but a children's author, novelist and translator, and he has made a number of highly-regarded radio programmes. His collections include Columba, Iona and Wild Horses. This poem, Clonmacnoise, is from his latest work Salt and Light which is largely inspired by the Celtic Christian world. Some of the poems re-create the early Celtic days in Ireland and Western Scotland, while others are concerned with the finding of God's presence in our lives amidst the ordinary and the everyday. His publisher is Saint Andrew Press and you can find out more about him at www.kennethsteven.co.uk
Clonmacnoise
Wrapped in the wool of winter
The fields breathed with frost
Even the Sannon confused
Searching in ribbons through the fields
The sun straining to see
Life a single frozen eye
We came to Clonmacnoise
Fifteen hundred years too late
Crows in the ivied silence of round towers
Gravestones bent as though in penitence
Chapels fallen in upon themselves
Like broken faith
And yet I could imagine
In the once upon a time of Ireland
Men awakening to break the wells
To bring in steamings of white water
Keeping the turf fire's glow
Storm after December's storm
Here where they had caught God's light
(So fragile, yet alive for ever)
To bear it bright
Out into the dark places of the earth