"Bardsey" A Pilgrimage Poem by Ruth Stock

What song can I sing to you Bardsey
The ancient Celts had a song for everything
that fit the land, the hard work, the presence of
God;
but even our most beautiful chants sound hollow
beside the birdsong
and the constant breaking wave.

What picture could I create that would capture
the patient grey rock
fissured and flecked with more history than I can
imagine,
fostering tiny forests of lichen and sea thrift,
home to puffin and kittiwake generations.

What poem could I write that would breathe
the soft clear air of Bardsey
that turn your back on the mainland and modernity,
always looking outward to the ocean horizon
and the great forgotten sea highways
of our forbears.

I feared to come here
as to few other places,
feared that you would disappoint,
that, desiring you to be a thin place
I would find illusion,
An island whose twenty thousand guardian saints
would rest indifferent under my feet.

Now I know that what I fear is what I bring with me
unable to set down;
But that even one hour by your shore
has started to loosen the strings of imagination
and wonder and delight.

What song can I sing you, Bardsey,
except “I’ll come back,
come back,
back”;
And all my salt springs be made sweet in you.