Come in, Bride!

Brigid Eve

Quickly now.
Sweep the hearth.
Dress the altar
with daffodils and flowering quince
from the wild verges.
Add small things.
A blue pitcher of holy Glastonbury water,
a jar of poppy seeds,
a quill for me, and a crystal inkwell.
Grandmother’s anvil,
and from my daughter
a tiny twin of the Newgrange spiral stone,
portal of dark tomb, ancestral womb.
Lastly, woven by my hands from western wheat,
Her sunwise cross.

Over the thousand miles and years
I keep to the old housewifery.
Light the candles.
Tie the muslin strip to the sacred tree.
My worktable is still,
and the teakettle is on.
For tonight She comes
to bless me,
and I have made ready.

Come in, Bride!
You are a thousand times welcome!

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