Visiting Brigid

Brigid claimed me three or four years ago. This Celtic goddess of inspiration, healing, justice, and the waters feels so familiar in essence. This year, I found myself astir with a strange energy before Her ritual. Feeling my heart, feeling the world. As I sat down for a breath, the poem I share below arrived, almost as if it had been waiting for me to pause. And listen. Here, for you, an early version.
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Visiting Brigid

​I'm almost too hot to come to you tonight, Brigid. 
Or is it cold I feel—your fire burning in a village whose 
center has retreated?

My own center is turning around & around 
& I, dervish, uncombed, undone 
in the whirling center of my world

let birds fly out of my mouth 
black birds 
whose messages may be read by our darkest skies--

surely there is light out there to read them by— 
surely the light that burns in the center of our universe is bright 
enough to bring us home.

Bright like your name, Brigid. 
Bright like your songs & spells & forge. 
Bright enough to forge darkness into home.

It is dark tonight. 
This night, night after night 
repeats & we wonder 
after light, lament, fire.

I stumble around for resolution, a neat way 
to part this hot & cold night.

For surely—it cannot but be— 
there is a place where all that draws closer 
draws the color of its own heart into light.

Surely, Brigid, you want me there tonight 
& together we will turn 
hot into cold 
then hot again.

Day after day the wheel turns 
& there is a day that will come 
when day will follow night. 
Surely, your name will draw in the bright 
stars, bright waters 
where dragons still tend to the central fire 
of our village, its linked heart.

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Celtic Oracle Deck - art by Maxine Miller