Chapel (2004)

St. Oran’s Chapel lies in a
Nook of the Iona abbey,
A bleached room with a broken now
Reassembled cross, upon which
Scripts of paper have been hung - psalms
For the dead, I’ll guess; for though Saint
Columba built on this old ground
Saint Oran rules what’s further down,
His buried mouth the boat which sails
Cold bones through the breasts of angels.
In that small room starved light washes
The walls with milk from Paradise.
I’d lick each one clean if I could.
Suffice to sing of that saint’s room
Where deep light bastes the paps of doom.