Kilmacduagh

Poem

In the daily in-betweens

of the summoning bell

what did their minds construct,

those mason monks?

Did they pray that

their millennial monument

would endure for God

a millennium on?

Foundation denied

Cyclopean slabs shouldered

in stubborn faith

and garbled curses

A door at ladder’s reach

window opes spiraling upward

to conical roof, still intact

amid roofless churches

What would those builders make

of the tourbus pilgrims

come to inspect their incongruity,

leaning away from Colman’s cave?