Skellig (On Solitude)

"An incredible, impossible, mad place. I tell you the thing does not belong to any world that you and I have lived and worked in; it is part of our dream world.”
GB Shaw




This is my take on the place:

Solitude


Ah for yon beehive of stone

On angry Skellig.

Dank and dismal as the souls

Of those I left behind.

With naught but the winged

Creatures of god to observe

This lonely vigil,

That God might be shown to me.



And well it springs to mind

The day so long ago.

Dear Seamus and I set sail,

Our small curragh so proud

Tossed as a pebble oer the waves

Sunset bound for the silhouette

Of yon Skellig.



A quiet life we left. Safe within

The sheltered walls of home

To a rockbound world of wind and sea

Ne’er intended for man

A place to find our God.

A place that Seamus would not see.



My dear brother, no scholar he

A man who by his life

Was fit for God’s company.

And now he dwells beneath the waves

As gannets soar above to sing

His praises

And I alone look out to see

From Skellig’s rocky crags.



As sweet were his dying words to me

As the caress of Mother

So long removed.

To Skellig…. Riocard

There is no return.

You must live for us all.

 I gazed into those eyes so loved

That will ne’er be seen the more.

And he sank into the brine.



Four long years have I dwelled

Here, in God’s embrace

With sun and sea and sky

And in early eve

The returning’ puffins cry

As the sun, that lamp of God

Sets upon my upturned face.



Would that I see the smiles of home.

The laughter of other’s eyes.

The somber silence of their quest

The mirth and merriment of their jest

My father’s wrath, my mother’s sigh

Even now I hear their voices

Ringing in the cold sea wind

That wraps me as a cloak

On this rock of God.



For as dear Seamus cried

There is no return.

On a clear and peaceful eve

When the sea lies calm

In the pink of the setting sun

I see Kerry’s distant shore

A lifetime away.

For my small curragh sleeps with my brother

And I awake here

Alone with God.



O hear my supplication,

O Father Of the world!

Even now you speak to me

In light and colour

And raging storm.

Lashin’, thrashin’ rivets of rain

That my fears be part of your own

And my loss, your gain.



And now as lavender becomes black

I return to yon beehive

To sleep again.

And awake in praise and love

On this rock of God.

Skellig my Lord

Skellig.

zman.. 90s