“A Brigid's Girdle - for Adele” & “Brigid’s Girdle” by Séamus Heaney

A Brigid's Girdle - for Adele

 

Last time I wrote I wrote from a rustic table
Under magnolias in South Carolina
As blossoms fell on me, and a white gable
As clean-lined as the prow of a white liner

Bisected sunlight in the sunlit yard.
I was glad of the early heat and the first quiet
And a delicious, articulate

Flight of small plinkings from a dulcimer
Like feminine rhymes migrating to the north
Where you faced the music and the ache of summer
And earth's foreknowledge gathered in the earth.

Now it's St Brigid's Day and the first snowdrop
In County Wicklow, and this a Brigid's Girdle
I'm plaiting for you, an airy fairy hoop
(Like one of those old crinolines they'd trindle),

Twisted straw that's lifted in a circle
To handsel and to heal, a rite of spring
As strange and lightsome and traditional
As the motions you go through going through the thing.

Brigid’s Girdle

On St Brigid’s Day, the new Life could be entered
By going through her girdle of Straw rope:
the proper way for men was right leg first,
Then right arm and right shoulder,
Head then left
Shoulder, arm and leg,
Women drew it down
Over the body and stepped out of it
The open they came into by these moves
Stood opener, hoops came off the world,
They could feel the February air
Still soft above their heads and imagine
The limp rope fray and flare like wind-borne gleanings
Or an unhindered goldfinch over ploughland

Note: From the “Crossings” Collection by Séamus Heaney

Image: "looping rope on plain background" by Kier in Sight Archives. From Unsplash. CC2.0 Modified to black and white by Mael Brigde.