My Poetry Gift for Brigid, In the Year I Turn 60

by

BrighidOnce again, as I have for many years, I am joining in the Poetry for Brigid Festival.

This is an annual world-wide event in honor of the Patron Saint of Ireland and Goddess of healing, smithcraft, and poetry (to name a few of Her purviews). It is held throughout Imbolc, since Her traditional feast day is Feb. 1.

You are welcome to post a poem that has special meaning to you, either on your website, blog, or other online hangout. And please tell us about it in the Comments below, if you wish. 

But to get included in the global celebration, please share the link on the Official Page (which is titled 2011, but is in fact the current hub for the Brigid Poetry Festival).

All you need to do after that is hop from link to link, relishing the poetry until you are overflowing with its sumptuous, soul-filling gifts.

By the way, if poetry has never been your “thing,” please remember it is meant to be read aloud, which I urge you to do. It is the sound and the sense woven together that will help you recognize that poetry is a most ancient, powerful, and pleasurable form of magick.

As my gift to Brigid this year, to whom I am dedicated, I offer this from the glorious poet, the late Denise Levertov.

All honor and gratitude always to you, my beloved Lady of Fire, Healing, and Art, for I know you are with me as I myself journey westward.

Stepping Westward

Denise Levertov (1923 – 1997)

What is green in me

darkens, muscadine.

If woman is inconstant,

good, I am faithful to

ebb and flow, I fall

in season and now

is a time of ripening.

If her part

is to be true,

a north star,

good, I hold steady

in the black sky

and vanish by day,

yet burn there

in blue or above

quilts of cloud.

There is no savor

more sweet, more salt

than to be glad to be

what, woman,

and who, myself,

I am, a shadow

that grows longer as the sun

moves, drawn out

on a thread of wonder.

If I bear burdens

they begin to be remembered

as gifts, goods, a basket

of bread that hurts

my shoulders but closes me

in fragrance. I can

eat as I go.

7 thoughts on “My Poetry Gift for Brigid, In the Year I Turn 60”

  1. That was lovely, Beth! Thank you for posting it. This is the year I turn 50, and that poem resonated for me as well. 🙂

  3. Not a member of this group, but I love poetry (and Beth of course!). Several years back, decades, I put together my own poetry “anthology”. All my favorites. Too lengthy to post here of course, but if anyone would like a copy, I’m glad to share. Email me at the above address.

    Diane Driver (BNA drive)

  6. Brigid’s Way

    With passion!
    Outpouring care feeds our mythic spring.
    Sparkling flame of peace abides within,
    melts forbidding.
    Not ignorant fools;
    no pleas for altruist beliefs.
    Relief of hunger feeds us.
    No cunning deceivers could with malice
    steal our good.
    Need reaches to heal through magical
    interchange.
    Energies not replenished, giving
    stops.
    Why meanly measure out
    moral scores in play at “who deserves”?
    Purposeful use of flowing contribution
    is no drain, but the focal point for
    cyclic rain’s reward.
    Fortune’s gift revealed, this well neverending,
    fed by Goddess blessing
    sacred vessels aching to be filled.
    Dip in with grace, good will, wisdom
    self-rejoicing.
    This is not belief or even knowing.
    This is breath of awe in motion.

    Brigid Poetry Festival, “an outpouring of verse in honor of the Goddess Brigid, Patron Saint of Ireland. ”

Comments are closed.