"A Song among the Stones": Den heilage Sunniva

Keneth Stevens diktsyklus "A Song among the Stones" frå 2012 handlar om dei irske munkane som på 600 talet skal ha  reist frå Iona og nordover til Island. Det er eit vakkert verk djup rotfesta i den gamle keltiske tradisjonn frå St.Columba som har levd vidare på stadar som Iona like til vår tid. Samstundes er det ei  storslått naturskildring frå Skotland, Atlanterhavet og Island. Men her er og eit lite sidesprang til Vestlandet, til Den heilage Sunniva og Selja.

"tell us av story, they said

he thought a long time
unsure, like someone
searching blind in a cave

these are pieces of story, he said
like the charred ends of burned wood
and odd glow of ember
lighting like an eye when blown

Sunniva, an Irish princess
lusted after by some chiftain thug
fled with her followers
across the sea into fragments of islands
blown wherever God would

into the gnarled edges of western Norway
in and out of storm
a place driven by flocks of snow
a blue wind all summer

in time they heard whisperings of her again
sought to root her out as a bear
claws wild honey from a stump

she prayed the rocks might fall
rather than be carried off alive
buried under mountain rubble

however many years after
in the half darkness of winter
they came to Selja, saw strange light
glowing underneath the rocks

there the monastery was built
of broken stone
above the place where she had never died"