March Poetry Challenge (17th March, 2013)

The Luck of the Irish

Before Patrick was made a saint

He walker o’er the greenest isles
That e’er anyone had the fortune
To lay a softly trodden foot.

The legend it has thus begun

Of serpents banished hence,
Yet not a one was e’er found
Upon the verdant grass of Eire.

Yet to this day some souls will tell
Of the daring of this man
Who cast those slithering beasts to the waves
Ne’er to be seen again.

It continues at Aspatria

Where his lifeless staff took root
Upon being heaved unto the ground
And stood such long, long while.

Patrick’s preaching fell on deafened ears

And he stood upon that spot
So unflinching in his determination
Until such time as they heard.

By which such time his walking stick

Once a mere prop in his hand
Had reached a searching root down
Into that succulent soil.

Though remembered in our prayers today

As Saint Patrick, of the Irish folk,
His name has not been canonised
For his miracles were not true.

This day we celebrate a Christian Saint

With a day more pagan than not
More in accordance with those ancients
Once met by young Saint Pat.

Those two warriors of the Fianna

Survived across the eons
To meet the wandering cleric
Who then tried to persuade and convert.

They stood fast in their belief,

Instilled by Fionn mac Cumhaill,
Of fighting and feasting eternally
And living with the natural world.

And ‘tis the luck of the Irish

That this holy cleric, Patrick,
Has had his day become
A day of drinking and buffoonery.