Fr La’s weekly ‘Pause and Ponder’ from along the Pilgrim Path at Lough Derg. This week’s reflection – ‘Path and Shore’
Path and Shore
“The Lough Shore Pilgrim Path” we sometimes name it
because a dialogue, a kind of conversation
between the water and the pilgrim-walker
unfolds unbidden, view by changing view.
The lough at times lies very close below:
a steep down-drop no walker would attempt,
while other options open to the lakeside
inviting us to stop and gaze and listen.
With a week of rain the loughside water rises
lapping the foot of Brigid’s empty chair
and flooding the stones that circle round her well.
We glimpse the water through beech trunks in Portcreevy
defining the line where lough meets rocky shore
while, further along, the lake and marshland mingle
where a mountain stream flows outward through the reeds.
And then the forest swallows up the path
until we emerge above on the homeward stretch
and view again Lough Derg, spread out below.
Fr La Flynn, Prior
11 October 2021
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