CURRENT MOON

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Earth's Foreknowledge Gathered In The Earth


Thers, for whom I'm supposed to be guestblogging, but who's not yet sent me the invite that will let me do that (ahem!) reminds me how much I love Seamus Heaney:

A Brigid's Girdle

Last time I wrote I wrote from a rustic table
Under magnolias in South Carolina
As blossoms fell on me, and a white gable
As clean-lined as the prow of a white liner

Bisected sunlight in the sunlit yard.
I was glad of the early heat and the first quiet
I'd had for weeks. I heard the mocking bird
And a delicious, articulate

Flight of small plinkings from a dulcimer
Like feminine rhymes migrating to the north
Where you faced the music and the ache of summer
And earth's foreknowledge gathered in the earth.

Now it's St Brigid's Day and the first snowdrop
In County Wicklow, and this a Brigid's Girdle
I'm plaiting for you, an airy fairy hoop
(Like one of those old crinolines they'd trindle),

Twisted straw that's lifted in a circle
To handsel and to heal, a rite of spring
As strange and lightsome and traditional
As the motions you go through going through the thing.

And I'm printing this one, now, for those members of my "tribe" across the pond and on the other side of the Equator. Blessings of Imbolc to you. It's all just Goddess pouring Goddesss into Goddess.

Art found here.

1 comment:

Anne Johnson said...

Brilliant. Never saw that one before.

Our Lughnasadh was greeted with hailstones and tornado warnings. We got it done, though.