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.