PoetryOfPlace
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Singing Psalm 98 in an Irish Key
Psalm 98 invites all creation to joyfully praise God’s justice and mercy in harmony. Continue reading
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Writing a Hymn—and Learning Stabilitas Overnight
This hymn didn’t emerge in a chapel. It came overnight. In silence. In storm. In the unbuilt monastery of the mind. “Wild winds rise fierce across the plain,My refuge be.” The imagery came quickly. But the deeper formation came slowly—as most Benedictine things do. I’m part of a Benedictine community without walls. We are dispersed… Continue reading
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Half the parish
Waiting on a haircut, tea on the tray, pen in hand—and “Half the Parish” found its way onto the page. ☕✍️ There’s something about the hum of a café and the simple coming and going of people that turns into poetry if you sit long enough. Firecastle, Kildare. Simple time well spent. Half the parish … Continue reading
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Unknown Paths, Rising Hills: Writing a Hymn for the Second Sunday in Lent (Year A) — “You call us out to unknown paths” (CM)
You call us out to unknown paths You call us out to unknown paths,Like Abram long ago;Through mist along the Barrow’s bends,Your pilgrim people go.You lift our eyes to rising hills,Where skylarks greet the dawn;Your keeping shade, like hawthorn’s bough,Stands guard till night is gone.Not by our striving, strength, or claimBut gift of grace alone,You… Continue reading
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Coffee Quiet.
Over lunch with my husband in our local café, I settled into the gentle rhythm of the room—the soft sigh of the coffee machine, the low hum of conversation. Around us, friends chatted and colleagues worked, all our different lives briefly sharing the same warm space. As one half of the gay pair from the… Continue reading
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Divinity in Difference: The Window That Says What We’ve Been Trying to Say
Every now and then, an image comes along that says in colour and light what pages of writing have been circling for years. This stained-glass window feels like that. It gathers the heart of NeuroDivine—the essays, the fiction, the hymns, the poetry—and holds them up to the light with one steady claim: Difference is not… Continue reading
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The Pharmacy of Praise
This morning I wrote a hymn about pill boxes and blister packs—about Sundays spent sorting seven small doorways for the week ahead. It’s personal. Andrew and I both live by the rhythm of medicines, colours divided into morning and evening, lids clicked shut in quiet preparation. Sorting tablets isn’t a small thing in our house;… Continue reading
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By the Triogue’s Edge
Inspired by the lone heron standing by the River Triogue in Port Laoise that I see as I walk up to dialysis. I stand beside the quiet streamWhere Triogue’s waters glide;The mallards chatter in their team,But I keep to the side.The park hums soft with passing feet,With prams and dogs and play;Yet here upon my… Continue reading
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In the Thin Place of Forty Days
Rooted in the landscape, spirituality, and imaginative tradition of the Irish midlands, the text interweaves the great biblical “forty” journeys—the flood, the exodus, Sinai, the wilderness, and the risen Christ’s forty days—with the sacred geography of Kildare and its surrounding boglands. Drawing on Celtic Christian imagery and the rhythms of creation, it invites worshippers to… Continue reading
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Fit Lads of Winter & The Birth of The Icicle Lounge
There’s something about winter that sharpens everything. The air is colder. The sky is clearer. The silence feels closer to the skin. And yet—in that cold—warmth becomes unmistakable. “Fit Lads of Winter” began as a playful meditation on contrast. I kept imagining figures striding through snow as if it were nothing. Jackets open. Breath visible.… Continue reading
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Arrival
“Arrival celebrates finding grace in ordinary moments and connections amid vulnerability and everyday life.” Continue reading
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Waiting
Waiting embodies both struggle and spirituality, particularly for neurodivergent individuals, emphasizing presence in uncertainty. Continue reading
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Morning. Coffee. Birdsong.
There’s something beautifully Irish about the way morning begins. Before traffic. Before emails. Before the news. Just the thin grey light over hedges and fields—and the blackbird breaking the silence. When I wrote this dawn chorus poem, I was thinking about that ancient rhythm: robin on the post, wrens in the ivy, curlew calling over… Continue reading
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Thanksgiving on the Midland Line
There are journeys we take because we must, and journeys that quietly give something back to us along the way. For me, the railway through Ireland’s Midlands has become both—a path to healing and a moving window onto beauty. This poem is a small act of thanksgiving: for tracks that carry me to care, for… Continue reading
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The rainbow on my wrist.
From Monasterevin’s quiet stopThe morning train rolls west;Past cattle grazing by the line,And rooks that guard each nest.We cross the Barrow’s silver span,The viaduct below;A hare breaks cover in the reedsAnd watches as we go.In Port Laoise-bound and drifting thoughtsI catch a sudden grin—A stranger nods as though they knowSome secret held within.In town, the… Continue reading
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Terrace. Neighbours. Gloom.
This poem is a quiet meditation on belonging. Set against the soft pulse of a sleeping terrace, it listens closely to the unnoticed life of the night — cats threading the dark, a fox passing unseen, an owl offering its steady call. In that chorus of small, living presences, the speaker finds not isolation but… Continue reading
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A Sunday kept in Love
A Sunday Kept in Love began as a reflection on an ordinary Sunday shaped by absence, devotion, and small, faithful rituals. The poem gathers simple domestic details—the batter left waiting, the organ lifting prayer at eleven, a familiar café table with one chair open, two cats keeping watch at home—and discovers in them a love… Continue reading
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Rule. Dawn. Praise.
This hymn embodies Saint Benedict’s vision of communal prayer, uniting hearts through psalmody at dawn. Continue reading
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Richard. Window. Watch.
In the deep hush of night, wrapped in turquoise warmth, I sit and breathe while Richard keeps his faithful vigil beside me. I sit upright in Andrew’s chair,The window open wide;My coughing stirs the early air,Yet Richard stays beside.Wrapped in a soft Sherpa’s hold,A teddy‑bear‑like hug,I brace against the night‑time coldWithin its gentle snug.Across the… Continue reading
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Holy. Queer. Desire.
The hymn celebrates queer spirituality, affirming belonging and inherent worth in Christ’s tenderness. Continue reading
