Poetry: Our Passage to Newgrange

GAVIN BOURKE

The scrunch of stone

could be heard under our boot-heels

as we climbed up the ascent.

It was like a pilgrimage

for something of true substance

in the midst of our modern lives.

All of our heads bowed, by necessity

to enter the innermost sanctum

which felt very sacred

seeing ancient art at its most precious and rich

wrapped up in the here and the now.

All light had disappeared overnight

as we we stood immersed in the cold

and pitch-black darkness just before the dawn.

We knew before we arrived

that we might be unlucky

and miss the spectacle

with the weather that was forecast

but we we were glad

to have made the trip through the night-time hours

even though it was beginning to look

like a waste of our time

under such an overcast sky outside

until an unexpected break in the clouds suddenly began

and a stream of golden light began to climb along the ground beneath us

about an inch at a time

through the darkness at a precise angle

a little later than the specific time

we had hoped that it would.

It shone along the sand-covered floor

and through all of us in attendance there

who had walked to the inner-chamber that morning

in the fresh December breeze

to experience the light of the sun at dawn

in that magical chamber full of swirling designs

carved into the stone for all eternity,

like we never had before.