St. Hildegard of Bingen
Today is the feast day of St. Hildegard. So it seems appropriate that I’ve spent part of my morning tending to my garden. For those who don’t know, not only was Hildegard a powerhouse theologian and lecturer as well as a mystic, but she was also a student of medicine. She collected, both from her own experience and the books of others, a series of medicinal (or anti-medicinal) uses for nearly everything under the sun. So, today, in honor of St. Hildegard, here are two poems in her honor. The first is a sonnet which first appeared in my book, The Green Man, the second is one I wrote a few years back.
“St. Hildegard”
O holy abbess, keeper of the garden,
You learned to read the blessed book of nature.
You saw behind the veil of habit and custom
And through to the greening power of earth, holy verdure.
You worked with planets and birds and animals and stones,
Knowing when their ministrations would heal.
You read the earth, right to its very bones,
But you knew the works of heaven just as well.
God used the wondrous cosmos to show you how
The book of revelation might be read.
He showed you heavenly choirs who before him bow
And took you on the path we all must tread.
And so, St. Hildegard, please say a prayer
That we may one day meet you in heavenly air.
“Hildegard the Hedgewitch”
A woman wanders in the German forests
She searches in the wild and in the tame,
Growing herbs for poltices and potions.
And when the malady has got a name,
She makes the healing balms and salves and lotions,
Knowing the plants and animals and stones,
The birds, the fish, the reptiles, metals, and wine
That will cure the very ache from aging bones
And give a restful sleep to a restless mind.
Sage and rose will calm oncoming rage,
And female mandrakes can quench the fires of lust,
While arum mixed with wine will cure an ague.
Creation is a book to read, we just
Need the eyes to see and thus to read.
Perhaps we will not always find it says
Everything the Hildegard used at need.
We are not poisoned by the mallard’s eggs,
Nor will the griffin’s flesh cause us harm,
Nor can the unicorn cure leprosy,
Even if there might be unicorns,
But we have long forgotten how to see.
The abbess picking plants to cure our ills
Knew some things by experience, the others read.
And though to some she might seem a witch with devils,
She believed in Christ, resurrected from the dead.
For her the world was woven like a web,
A complex of interconnected realities,
Where every vine that’s green and berry read
Could teach or heal or harm our humanity.
So wander with her in unworldly woods,
And see with eyes of present and of past,
And you may find something more than material good,
Something eternal, something that will last.
David Russell Mosley is a poet and theologian living in Washington State where he serves as the Headmaster of the Chesterton Academy of Notre Dame.His second book of poetry, Liturgical Entanglements, is out now. If you want to support his work, please consider donating through the button below.
