On the Week before the Brigidine Festival.
Brigid, my namesake, how I wonder about you,
The all-embracing goddess and the saint.
What is it about you that is burning bright again,
After millennia of continuous flame.
Unforgettable your lasting love, your poverty, your healing.
Bristling through place, space, time immemorial.
As you initiate your monastery forward
When you cover your cloak over fertile land.
Matriarch in the stars,
Primordial as Mary
As you wet nursed her child.
Mary of the Gael
Where do you lie?
With us and on high.
The people’s person
Vastly beyond Saint Brigid,
Although she you once were.
I adore you with your cross
As girl, as mother, as cailleach.
Whoever you were,
Whoever you are,
Blessed by God to be our archetypal lady.
Let it be so.
Woman of the Tundra.
Woman of the sacred well,
Patron of poets, smiths, healers
Do we pay you homage
Oh. Brightening one.
As you journey through the years
Lastly as the old woman of winter,
Who is babog with the dawning light
With all the promise of spring remembered.
We believe again in your mighty power.
