St. Brigid and the Church of Oak

Photo by Nheyob
(CC BY-SA 3.0)

For today’s Earth Day poem from my collection/chapbook in progress The Green Man and Other Poems, I want to share another poem about a saint. There are many saints who have a deep connection with nature. St. Brigid of Kildare (which means Church of Oak) holds a special place amongst them. We know, in one sense, very little about St. Brigid. Some scholars even wonder if she isn’t just a synchretized version of the Irish goddess of the same name, or perhaps a former priestess of that goddess who later converted. The truth is, we don’t know. But that doesn’t matter too much to me. The important thing is that she became such a central and important figure in Irish Catholicism. So today, I offer you a sonnet about St. Brigid.

“St. Brigid”
Give to me your prayers, o blessed Bride,
O woman of Kildare, please bring me home.
Show me Christ and drench me to the bone
With your love for him, the love in which you died.
You give the Church of Oak a source of pride
For there, through you, God’s grace miraculously shone.
Your prayers were said to cause the rains to run,
And you blessed the babes who in broken families cried.
Yet who are you really, Brigid of Kildare?
Were you a pagan goddess, as some believe,
Worshipped at the Imbolc, the start of Spring?
Or are you the patron saint of poets and brewers,
An abbess of Christ under the oaken the leaves?
I believe you’re with the angels, and you sing.

If you like what you’re reading and want to support go to Buy Me a Coffee.