Iona of my heart/ I return/ a pilgrim to your willing
shores/
in a sackcloth of rainbow ash/ coming alive in your
light/
coming alive in your dove feather hands/ I bend
to the rhythm of your breathing/ my city-tainted
spirit,
humbled by the eloquence of your silence.
1.
The city is behind me, with its fiery chimneys
belching out
desperation & calls to forever reach out, stretch
cold muscles ever towards could-be & might be
& if-only.
I am alone on the white strand of Port Ban and only am/
my hands relaxed/ gently holding onto nothingness/
the lucid green Atlantic slowly lapping round my feet/
God the Mother sharing her mystery/ and on the still
shores
of Iona, I am quiet enough inside to hear/ her poetry,
finer than a carved sand yantra/ the subtle
intonations
taking me thru’ and beyond the entire gamut
of my experience and usual emotional reaction/
she moves me, as I have never been moved before/
she moves me slowly, gently, as only a mother would,
to a greater and greater understanding/ deeper and
deeper
into the silence, into the stillness/ until I can
encompass
the infinite/ until I can taste her salt spindrift
in the fibres of my tongue.
My feet are moss green, rooted into water and sand/
I am still as a valley oak/ my branches steady
in the shimmering summer sky/ my leaves
photosynthesising raw energy/ I grow, undetected/
unannounced/ quietly giving thanks to The Great
Spirit.
2.
Here begins the pilgrimage. I shall be
mindful of walking/
mindful of every rock, every pebble, every blade of
grass,
every grain of sand/ mindful of every thought, every
desire,
every memory/ mindful of God/ mindful of my presence/
mindful of my journey/ mindful of the small step
with which it commences.
I am a five year old, crunching across the sand
with bright bucket and spade/ a smile bigger than my
face/
yelling and whooping as I run down to the intoxicating
sea/
my family shuffling behind/ my first time out the
city/
there is so much space, I cannot contain my joy/ it
pours
out of me in raw, controversial noise/ my first memory
of Iona/ but going back further... I am a monk
in brown hessian cowl/ silence, my friend/
God, my shepherd/ joy, my serious companion/ laughter,
a forgotten comrade/ my hands are large and callused,
like giant spades/ my shoulders are broad/ I build
huts,
tend cattle, chop wood, sow and reap/
simplicity attends me/ God is in my heart/ and I
am in God’s heart... and we are all
in the heart of this noisy, exuberant child/ this five
year old,
fresh out of the city/ leaping carelessly
over the legs of naked, sunbathing hippies/ yelling
and screaming, fit to burst/ a stranger to
tranquillity/
with no respect for ganga’s fragile sensibilities.
I have been every age here. This island knows me
in the depths of its soul. Our atoms are fragmented,
have interchanged in karmic tangle over aeons.
I am mindless of my history, but I know, inside of me,
there beats a heart of pink granite, green marble,
sodden peat, bleached sand. I am Iona and Iona is me.
Our spirits are melded as one. We have known formation,
solitude and becoming. We have tasted the invocations
of both the wise and the desperate. We have shared
our light and our shadows with every seeker
who has sought these shores.
Iona of my heart, Iona of my love, I have sought you
throughout forever.
When you were lava
I was cooling water.
When you were barren I was the seed.
When you were empty I was the first wandering
tribe.
When you were faithless I brought you love.
When you were radiant I came to you
in all my wounded humility. And now, as you glow
to sunburst intensity, I come to you,
in the penultimate stage of entropy: a victim
of too many lifetimes; I come to be healed,
to have my burden lifted, my back straightened,
my eyes filled with light, my heart filled with
love.
I come to be emptied out.
Because, only empty, can I merge with the infinite
again.
3.
This valley of flowers, running along the western edge
of the stony ground, beyond the clachancorach
of my dreams, this is where I spilled myself into you:
into the vulva of the one woman, into the vulva
of the thousand women. It was the ultimate union,
the one true yoga: the yang dissolved in yin;
lingum abluted in yoni. In fucking, I became pure.
I discovered my true essence. The link
between me and you: the link that destroyed
all sense of identity. In afterglow, I could not distinguish
between sun and hills, flowers and sky, cock and cunt,
semen and rain.
I lost my knowledge; and re-discovered
mind-less bliss.
The poppies in this valley are filled with lovers’
blood.
This is the centre of the island, where the pulse
of the goddess beats at its loudest, at its
most clear.
I can smell orgasm in the grass, taste resonance in
the air.
Couples are pulled here to copulate: strangers
who meet by chance are tempted by the fates;
hermits and solitaries, torn by withered
memories.
Such is the power of this place.
Who is the you, I miss here? Who is it
my heart yearns for?
Primal woman who embodies
every woman.
Goddess of my dark blood. You
sing
on the wind which whispers through my hair.
Your scent rising through me, filling me. I am woman
to the overpowering nature of your womanhood.
I want to lie prone between your legs: a supplicant
at your altar.
A priest offering wine
to your pleasure.
Bend me. End me.
I need to lose myself in your never never.
4.
There is safety in circles: these scattered stones/
I am empowered, centred: at one. I sense the presence
of the dove man, the pale saint from Ireland. His peace,
of the profoundest kind: a peace, struggled for.
There is the struggle, and then the letting go.
Only by becoming empty can one be filled.
There is more Cuchulain in my sword hand
than Columcille.
The Tao is in my head, but not my centre.
In stillness and mindfulness, I am learning ways
to circumvent the chaos. But in my middle years, I am
still crawling.
There is so much I have forgotten.
Though,
not enough.
Breathing into my hara, into my solar plexus,
into my heart chakra, I slow my thoughts to a minimum:
become aware of the movement of clouds and grass,
the stillness of stones and soil. Colours and smells
come to me more peaceably now. Sounds form
into patterns.
Bird song becomes language:
wind, pentatonic music. I hear so much more now,
but not enough.
It is said, he could talk to birds. That the doves
would follow him round the island. That his acolytes
were constantly surprised... and loved him all the
more
for that. It
is hard to remember he was a prince, a warlord,
a murderer: hard to keep a perspective, to know
that though your goal is so far away, it is still
possible
to travel further.
In this sacred space, I know not that I will become,
but
that I am. In
timelessness I understand the illusion
of time for what it is. God and I are one.
5.
Three hundred and thirty feet above the sea;
and I am on top of the world. The Cuillins of Skye
to my North.
Ireland to my South. The Atlantic
to my West.
The ferry home to my East. I can
see
everything from here.
The wind ferocious in my hair.
Skylarks in my ears.
I am in love
with the whole crazy fucking world, for all its
Hiroshimas,
Belsens, Belfasts, Dresdens, Sarajevos, it is still
a beautiful, extraordinary place. My life lies
before me now, a mystery unfolding. I will take
a small part of this peace home with me.
Wherever that may be.
Read more of Dee Rimbaud's
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