Columba and my calling
A fierce dove, a fiercer gale, and a small epiphany on the Donegal coast.
June the ninth is Saint Columba’s day — a saint who has a particular hold on me, bound up somehow with my own slow journey toward faith.
[ A second paragraph continues the story — placeholder. It closes, as his posts do, with where the poem is collected. ]
1:42
The sonnet — placeholder copy, not Malcolm’s poem
You called, and I came late and unaware,
half-walking and half-carried to the shore;
I did not know your name, or that the air
itself was summons, and the sea a door.
The fires were lit along the headland’s rim,
the music rose to meet the falling light,
and something in me answered, dark and dim,
a memory of morning in the night.
half-walking and half-carried to the shore;
I did not know your name, or that the air
itself was summons, and the sea a door.
The fires were lit along the headland’s rim,
the music rose to meet the falling light,
and something in me answered, dark and dim,
a memory of morning in the night.
So let the map go; let the road be lost;
let only the long coastline lead me on,
past every harbour, whatever the cost,
until the last horizon, and the dawn.
For calling is not something we decide —
it is the tide that takes us, and the guide.
let only the long coastline lead me on,
past every harbour, whatever the cost,
until the last horizon, and the dawn.
For calling is not something we decide —
it is the tide that takes us, and the guide.
The Poet’s Post
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Alf
9 June, 12:27
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Rebecca
9 June, 13:47
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Erika
9 June, 16:02
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