St. Brigid

 

February 1 is the feast of Saint Brigid of Kildare.  She is honored by both Christians and Druids.

Here's a poem in her honor by the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney:

A Brigid's Girdle

(from The Spirit Level)

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.