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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