——-Follow me, said Paddy
as we passed a sagging barn,
——-then took the footpath through the furze

ablaze with blossoms. He wouldn’t say
——-where we were going,
so she appeared, as the holy can,

——-out of nowhere. A plaster figure
dressed in Marian blue, her crown
——-and rosaries weighing upon her:

Saint Dymphna, my guide told me
——-then, and this is her well.
Beside it was a clootie tree

——-filled with offerings that pilgrims dip
in holy water before tying them
——-to its branches. Ribbons and scraps

of fabric from a loved one’s clothes.
——-Today, there is nothing that doesn’t
bespeak sorrow. The trailing tormentil,

——-even the blossoms of heal-all.
Everyone has something to spirit away—
——-the mother at the well’s stone altar,

her daughters praying in the shade.
——-The forlorn, Paddy called them. All of us
who find our way through the thorny gorse.

————-—

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Allison Funk is the author of six books of poems, including The Visible Woman (Parlor), and has received Guggenheim and NEA fellowships.

Image: Annie Spratt. Unsplash, 2022.