In the last weekend in August there’s a place where you can loose your sins .
Walking on a mountain track .

Forgiveness and penance is older than the hills .
Colder than the autumn frost .
Stones can’t answer back .

An overgrown path travels onwards and upwards .
To Crough Patrick where in a stone chapel I shall pray .

The journey is a personal pilgrimage .
Blisters on my feet .
Silence in the stones on the way .

Clouds gather as grey as the shale
that cut into the mountain covering the way where pilgrims pray.

Barefoot pilgrims walking with sticks and shawls .
They crawl to the top where the rewarded with a view of the bay .


By Paul Mc Cann