Stretching The Celtic Mind
by William Brendan McPhillips
Then was Fir Bolig not Neanderthal,
Heavy and groping stone to put on stone,
Building the outer limits of the call
To forge a world from blood and nerve and bone.
No others were as generous in claim
As Celts arriving on this Island were,
Giving the others who were here a name
And credit for their work and character.
These Celts were never ones to make the boast
Of first or last connection to the soil,
They landed like the ocean on the coast
Aware of continuity and toil.
Across the continent they came and spread
Their gospel of inclusion in the law
And recognized the living and the dead
Connected in the oat and oak and haw.
Their’s was an ever breaking from the mold
Of hierarchy in divine intent,
They would allow no god or king to hold
Them ransom to a savior to be sent.
A leader could be leader only when
The good was spread across the field and clan
And laws and gods were only worthy then
When good and right and peace and plenty ran.
They made their story from a tapestry
Of tales of others who were here before
And even still in telling history
Embraced the Norse and Norman to the core.
But having said all that on attitude,
They did embrace the new religion then
And when they did turned law to platitude
And never saw the union come again.
The point of such an over view is not
To wish the Christ, and all he brought, away,
But to remember underneath the lot
The living moment was the judgment day.
And always in the passing moment stood
The others who preceded us and gave
A sense of living for the common good
And not of heaven found beyond the grave.
Within the story, now unfolding, lies
This truth of ours in anthropology,
And bones and beads and rocks and ancient ties
Begin to prove our own mythology.
In stories told we give the mind a span
And know we set our future in the past,
But no one knows where Celtic lore began
Or why apocalypse was never cast.
We only know we came across the sea
And found the others who were here before
And after us came others making me
An heir to all of us and them and more.
And as there was no starting point begun,
Nor time when gods were only mine to hear,
Then when we do go out beyond the Sun
We’ll have Dé Danaan whispers in our ear.
- Written for and Dedicated to :
Pam McDermott (Áine MacDermot)
by W.B. McPhillips
