A weekly reflection from along the Pilgrim Path at Lough Derg. This week Fr La is reflecting on ‘Looking for Life.’
Out there today I was looking for life.
In this shamrock season I knew there’d be none of it
along this stretch of path through the pines.
But the three-leafed sorrel was springing up green,
its freshness promising something of spring.
Then at last I saw what I had hoped for:
a cluster of spawn in the steam by the wayside.
It was not very pretty, not pretty at all –
not the transparent jelly from the ponds of my chlidhood
that we carried home or to school in a jam-jar
to watch as the weeks turned full stops into commas
and the commas came alive as wriggling tadpoles.
I found what I hoped for, though not as expected:
dark murky frogspawn in a brown mountain stream.
Life does not always have to be pretty.
Fr La Flynn, Prior
22 March 2021