Circles break apart, time seeds scatter. St. Brendan’s ship sails away.
The sweep of time moves fast; the visible half circle arch matched with its half heard bellow below.
Time flows leaves or comes, emanates from the stones laid across the lands.
And the poets’ hands hover; feel the energy where she comes, where she leaves
Before the first fall,
we Irish  danced  on Eiru’s body reciting psalms and prayers.
Time passes, stones sit. Crumbs of language fall astray;
come and leaves again while we clean bone debris.   Chimney birds sweep the dust under the family
room rug where mounds grow unencumbered. And always the wars and spills of red blood. The stain
cannot be rubbed out.
Our  shadows  rise and fall. The bright shine of hard cinder truths rubbed out from our sleepy eyes.
Brown and black sheep wait to be washed clean, wait to be made white. We try to keep clean and
peaceful and
yet the battles go on and on.
During the famine times Eiru’s body became torn and rent while pretty purple flowered potatoes
Turned  rotten. More ships sailed away and American bricks were sometimes found not be gold.
And slow go the poets, neither this nor that, sweep the words out in the open over
the rim at the edge of the world where at the blank edge of space they fall through the sun and burn.

Mary C. O’Malley MSW,MFA is a poet and retired Social Worker. She had many poems published in the last ten years. You might have read one. This poem is in honor of the Irish pagan side of St. Patrick’s Day.