A Poem
Sometimes quiet is best. Today’s letter is brief. A simple offering at this turning point in the year, a time many of us call Imbolc. This is the moment when, in the old lands of my ancestors, baby lambs are in the belly, the first stirrings of spring—a season far from apparent here in western Québec.
Early Wednesday morning, stepping into the car to drive north, the air at minus-27 degrees Celsius, I watched the sun rise over the woods and crystalline fields. I was on my way to a local elementary school to give a day of workshops on the topic of courage, something we never stop needing in a human life. Our shared project was the creation of a school poem. At several instants, throughout each class of themed readings and discussions, impassioned blurts, dynamic chatter, and the scribbly whir of crayons, a quiet thought ran through me: what a thing to honour poetry in the presence of the future. Children.
For courage and comfort, poetry has always been a place to turn—to read, to write, to speak.
Later, hours after I was home, I lit a candle for healer Alex Pretti and poet Renée Good, and all the other recent victims of persecution in my neighbouring country to the south. I drummed for a long, long while, the firelight steady, the blind on my window open to the night sky.
For many across Ireland, Britain, and mainland Europe, the Celtic goddess Brigid—who is also a Christian saint and the spirit of light we honour at Imbolc—is the goddess of poetry. She is the goddess of smithcraft: the bending of metal to flame. Brigid is the goddess of healing. And she is not exclusive to one place or people.
You’ll find her everywhere—even here, in the still-cold winter. Her fire, a reminder that dictators will never stop the beating heart of poetry. That’s why they fear poets so much. Our spirit can’t be bought. It can’t be broken.
I wrote these lines in a quiet moment.
Sacred Flame
Here is the pen
black-blood scrawl, scissor-slick and spidery
Here is the pentacle, five points
The Lady
Here is the chrysoprase
dream-spinner crystal
Here is the altar votive,
globed Rose floats alone
Here is the black robe with golden thread;
inhabit this gown
Here is Owl on a card,
my vow
Here is beeswax
soft, pliable sweetness
Here are lines on a page,
Hers and mine, what I must follow
© Robin Blackburn McBride
