QUILLSPILL by Philip Casey
( On hearing a performance of ” Music for the Book of Kells” and ” Trauerfelder/Góirt an Bhróin ” )
-for Frank Corcoran, on his 70th Birthday
Water receives
bell music; bell
notes fade over
the rosy fingers of Eos
on the river.
Quillspill
of sound
throbs through The Eagle perches
pinpricks upon a stool
in the Insular above the apocalypse.
Majuscules.
The whistle blows.
The too-new is made Iron clangs.
slowly manifest. Steel rolls.
The sacred alphabet,
thrice looted, The Lion has lain
gleams in gloom. among the crushed
into the abyss.
The winged Calf
White Pangur is consumed,
leaps the Angel’s eyes close.
into time’s eyeblink. Leached bones are helped
through the gates of hell.
Water recalls
bell, bell
music fades over water –
crepuscular river.
-Philip Casey