Hallowed be thy name

by Déirdre Orme

Liberty – the righteous reason.
Freedom – a legacy that breathes,
with rhyme in every season.
For having lived –
in a speck of stardust,
did you see me?
Pilgrim –
running free with white horses,
making way along the sacred path,
as a bird on wing.

Within the land of soul,
stands a time,
chiseled from stone.
Encapsulated
in the peatlands of Connemara.

Heaven’s lintels now lie
as stepping-stones.
That once did see the foundations
of a nation.
Where poems to God fell,
into the silence
of the having happened.

Shattered in the ether,
I gather window fragments,
to piece together.
The scurry to Screebe,
the knowing of what was to come
and the sentences still not to be spoken.

A once warm bed,
A once safe house,
A once home, burnt out.

Within this house of prayer, I prod and poke,
pulling remnants from briar grove’s embrace.
Inside this lost ark of tin.
All within
a throw of ‘an cloch mór’ –
the beacon stone.

Reproduced with kind permission of the author. This poem was composed in a Poetry as Commemoration workshop held in association with Longford Archives at Edgeworthstown Community Library, in October 2023.  The workshop was led by writer Mary Melvin Geoghegan.