The Recluse of Glendalough
At the mouth of the cliffside cave,
foot braced on a crag,
St. Kevin hauls up the rope,
arm over serpentine veined arm,
five fathoms of it dangling a leather bundle
that swings above the lake
like a censer. Drawn to the cave’s emptiness,
he’d turned his back on the abbey’s monks.
Yet they’d pulled the curragh’s oars across the deep
to his hand-hewn lair—
wise men bearing weekly gifts.
Cheese, brown bread, salt fish.
Why would he need paltry
routine, his soul now bared
to the divine?
Cave-coffin his sanctuary.
Lake fog his incense.
If anything is holy, everything is.
About the Author: A 2021 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Ken Hines has written poems that appear in AIOTB, Vita Poetica, Ekphrastic Review, Psaltery & Lyre and other magazines. His poem “Driving Test” won the Third Wednesday Journal Annual Poetry Prize. All this scribbling takes place in Richmond, Virginia.
Image Credit: Denzillacey “The Gateway to the monastic city of Glendalough” (2021) CC BY-SA 4.0. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
As It Ought To Be 
