The 5th Annual Brigid Poetry Festival

As Hecate has noted, it's time for the 5th Anuual Brigid Poerty Festival, a tradition begun by Anne Hill. Hecate has written (her usual) inspiring and insightful posts on Imbolc and poetry. Take the time to read those and then check out the original poem written by Anne Hill at her blog.

Would you like to contribute? Then post a poem (or poems) on your own blog and post a link in the comments section at Anne's Blog O Gnosis.

Blessed Imbolc to you and yours. Here is my offering.

Ode To A Chesnut On The Ground by Pablo Neruda

From bristly foliage
you fell
complete, polished wood, gleaming mahogany,
as perfect
as a violin newly
born of the treetops,
that falling
offers its sealed-in gifts,
the hidden sweetness
that grew in secret
amid birds and leaves,
a model of form,
kin to wood and flour,
an oval instrument
that holds within it
intact delight, an edible rose.
In the heights you abandoned
the sea-urchin burr
that parted its spines
in the light of the chestnut tree;
through that slit
you glimpsed the world,
birds
bursting with syllables,
starry
dew
below,
the heads of boys
and girls,
grasses stirring restlessly,
smoke rising, rising.
You made your decision,
chestnut, and leaped to earth,
burnished and ready,
firm and smooth
as the small breasts
of the islands of America.
You fell,
you struck
the ground,
but
nothing happened,
the grass
still stirred, the old
chestnut sighed with the mouths
of a forest of trees,
a red leaf of autumn fell,
resolutely, the hours marched on
across the earth.
Because you are
only
a seed,
chestnut tree, autumn, earth,
water, heights, silence
prepared the germ,
the floury density,
the maternal eyelids
that buried will again
open toward the heights
the simple majesty of foliage,
the dark damp plan
of new roots,
the ancient but new dimensions
of another chestnut tree in the earth.

Update from Anne - Collection of Poems at Delicious.com
Yvonne has set up a system: if you post a poem this weekend, go to delicious.com and enter your post url with the tag brighid2010. (Or get a geeky friend to do it for you; it’s not super intuitive.) If you just want to read all the poetry, search for the brighid2010 tag at delicious and all our posts will show up together. Magic!

Photo used w/ permission

Related Articles:

Reclaiming Brigid: Celtic Goddess, Saint, Soul Smith, Creatrix & Leader

Old Imbolc: What Sacred Well Are You Tending?

Festival of Trees - A Poem for Imbolc 2009

Welcome Brigid - Poems for Imbolc (2008)

A Collection of Poems from the Silent Poetry Reading at Imbolc

Because Brigid Loves to Laugh (video)

Seeds for the Birds: Old Imbolc

Can You Feel It? Imbolc!