GAELIC MUSIC
No one is here to guard me from this music
which sets itself to lilting in the heart.
I run with it, away from commonplaces,
from ditto marks called days and frequent faces.
Where does it go, that gay and nameless road
down which our frolics start?
Certainly not toward rule. Nor yet, indeed,
toward indecorum. I have found its like
in books and pictures fair with the unknown.
I half suspect we pass reality,
and yet this strangeness makes a home for me
and takes me as its own.
I ask and ask, but no one ever tells me
what place we go when I meet Gaelic music
and we are left a little while alone.
Jessica Powers
I love this poem, written by a Carmelite nun many years ago. She was born in my home state of Wisconsin and her words exquisitely express the mystery and majesty of Gaelic music. I used the picture of the steps up Skellig Michael, the monastic island off the West Coast of Ireland as a symbol for running "from commonplaces". It's the music of the land, of the earth, and anyone ever listening to it knows that with its song you touch the world's heart. Spirituality isn't just about vocal prayer. It's about being part of God's creation. I know what place we go when we meet Gaelic music--we enter the house of God.
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