Writing Poetry for Imbolc
This is an early-snow year— those are his ears sticking out.
I am the Senior Druid of a Grove so I celebrate Imbolc with a group and a ritual. I wrote the unchanging base form of the ritual (the changes are seasonal and according to folklore) so it rhymes and scans. Even before I facilitated the grove I would write a poem to Bridget (or the Older Goddess in Irish Gaelic, ‘Bride’, not sounding like a woman about to be married but about half-way between ‘breathe’ and ‘breed with the final sound of ‘glottal stop’ which doesn’t exist in English) every Imbolc— more than is usual in poetics I would find that a poem would be writing itself on one of Her attributes or about the interaction of Herself and current world events. Every year as February drew near I would wonder if this year would be the one when no poem would bubble up but, so far, each year it has.
I’m not very hopeful nor positive about the future (although all we can do is go forward will-we, nil-we) so this year’s poem is bleak.
‘Can I inflict this on the rest of the grove?’ I asked myself.
And I realized that it isn’t really an invocation (as it should be in the context of the ritual) since I don’t think that Bridget can pull it out of the fire any more — it’s possible but I don’t have real belief in it.
I tried writing a more hopeful and invocational couplet to end:
‘Or maybe You will kindly show,
What it is that we should know?’
but that’s weak.
I didn't know if I could be given/could write more than one Imbolc poem since the need has never arisen before. The rest of the grove are broad in their acceptance of not-very-cheery poetics — I wrote one (or She wrote one through me) calling a curse down for the children in cages that had enthusiastic acceptance.
Then, as usually happens, I found myself thinking about good lines and rhymers:
This is the outside ritual space (used in the Bright Half of the year) with the Hunger Dog at the February 2nd point of the circle.
‘Alternative 2020
Next cycle will be shining new,
All burnished up, all clean and green,
And silvered o’er with shining dew,
With not a human to be seen.
The sun will rise, the dew suspire,
The spiral will start one click higher.
But, lo, we might be shining too;
If we turn our backs on what has been,
Learn different ways of making do,
And fit ourselves in the between
The Shining Sun can be our fire
Rather than our funeral pyre.’
So it turns out that I can, if necessary, write a personal and a grove Imbolc.
But I remain not-very-hopeful:
These are the acolytes of Bride: Otherworldly Cow and Silly Sheep.
Imbolc 2020
Hail and Farewell, Goddess!
We surely are about to die.
Caught in a trap that we have made.
Some few are listening, yes.
They have raised a hue and cry,
And have launched a failed crusade.
But world leaders and their minions,
Counteract the people’s will.
Dig coal! Pump oil! Use more plastic!
This is an offering to Her, the bouquet wrapped in a holder made from the receipt from the Food Bank.
They tout out their flawed opinions.
Remake the Earth into landfill,
‘Till all the world and seas are sick.
No redeemer will be born,
O Bride, on FimbulWinter’s morn.
JUDITH O’GRADY
is an elderly Druid (Elders are trees, neh?) living on a tiny urban farm in Ottawa, Canada. She speaks respectfully to the Spirits, shares her home and environs with insects and animals, and fervently preaches un-grassing yards and repurposing trash (aka ‘found-object art’).