The Bishop of Armagh
The Bishop of Armagh
James Hannon
There were no snakes on the island
when the kidnapped lad came aground
except for those who walked erect
and contended for the crown.
Boy to man, six years a slave
often naked, cold, alone,
he tended sheep against the threats--
the savage known, the worse unknown.
Isolation draws a mind in deep
to face temptation and despair,
to rage against one’s enemies,
to find a way back into prayer.
In the hermit’s hut a soul was formed,
hammered and peened as from a searing forge.
Quenched in tears a new man was born--
faith over fear, love over scorn.
As sheep have neither wit nor strength
to save them from the wolf,
they gambol off full unaware
of how some lies appear as truth.
A good shepherd knows his sheep
from the fleece down to the bone.
They may belong to someone else
but he loves them as his own.
So, once freed he returned to the verdant land
first his exile, now his home,
and took up the crozier and his cross
to save their souls for Rome.
Patrick preached the ways of peace
and the soul that’s born again,
founded churches, schools, and abbeys
and new life for women and men.
Irish monks would save the West
when the lamp of learning was elsewhere lost.
The nation would raise many scholars and saints,
and defenders of justice no matter the cost.
A man in his time does just what he can,
the future is always unknown.
But Ireland’s still grateful for that long ago
when he claimed them as his own.
James Hannon
Poet & Psychotherapist
James is a psychotherapist in Massachusetts where he accompanies adolescents and adults who are recovering from disenchantment, addictions, and illusions. His work has appeared in Blue River, Cold Mountain Review, Pensive, Psaltery and Lyre, Vita Poetica, and other journals and in Gathered: Contemporary Quaker Poets. His second poetry collection, To My Children at Christmas, was published in 2022 by Kelsay Books. Jameshannonpoetryplus.com.
Photography by Florian Pinkert