Finbarr Enters the Poet’s Mind

In the night, Finbarr* from the beach
enters the poet’s sleeping mind.

I am here a thousand years and even more.
Know this, that the bright light
of the eye of Finbarr
shines inside the bone of your own hard forehead.
See it form now! Right there! I told you!
It shines like the star shine of some bright planet
nearing your western horizon and
flashing its light-shimmer
down the dark ocean’s rippling calm.
And it swirls everything that is,
into your own deep soul.
Light like a new day, early dawning
bringing the morning on.

That light that shines
from my own eye inside you
casts back your own light
from some inside source you forgot you had,
but it isn’t your own light.
No. Not at all.
Are you dizzy now, lad? With possibility?



*Sixth Century Irish hermit Saint, Patron Saint of Cork City. It is said that upon his death, the sun did not set for two weeks.