Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Brighid Dreams the Poet

This is a poem I wrote in 1997, the result of meditation and a poetic exercise. It's been published a couple of times, but it does express a bit about how I see the Goddess of poets.

Brighid Dreams the Poet

I want a poet
with words of honey
and bitter dregs
of red Hungarian wine
dressed in the bones of birds
with wild
ecstatic eyes
and feet that dance the bonfire's rim

I want a poet
with many souls
souls of mice
and tigers
souls of ravenous
hungry ghosts
and the singing souls of rivers
of wallowing, bellowing buffalo
souls of moths, and geckos

I want a poet
with eyes of crystal shards
that see through flesh
and spy the hearts of trees
and mountains' bones
with thin, strong fingers
to pluck the hawthorn's bloom
in Beltain's dawning dews

I want a poet
with ballads for breath
and chants
to scatter fear from the deeps of night
or call the wren
from her nest
with spells to lay children to sleep
and bind the rising moon

I want a poet
with fur and claws
and hot, panting tongue
thirsty
and seeking the spring



May you dream of the spring.

6 comments:

  1. Not surprisingly, the last stanza is my favorite :) But very nice poem overall; thank you for sharing!

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  2. Thanks for commenting, Lupa. I thought you might like the imagery. There's a lot there pulled from my experiences and from the Gaelic image of the Well of Wisdom. It's central to my worldview and my practice and I'll be speaking more of it as I write for Searching for Imbas as time goes by. I feel that the animist approach is very important as well, and reaching into the multi-souled, shapeshifting part of myself as I practice filidecht.

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  3. Ye Gods, this is beautiful!
    I can´t wait for the rest...
    ;-)))

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  4. Thanks Endovelicon -- I hope that you'll enjoy the other things I'll be posting, poems or not!

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  5. Erynn--I'd be quite interested in the animistic aspects of what you're doing. Most of what I've seen as an observer of Celtic religious and magical practice in general, whether CR or otherwise, has appeared to be more deity-based. I'm really curious to see how this progresses.

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  6. Lupa -- That's an excellent idea. I definitely want to address animism in the filidecht book and there's really, I think, a lot to say about it. I may make that the next short essay here, a bit of an introduction to how I see the path as animistic.

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