You manifest magically
On the metal gate
You snatch my attention
Right here
I know you blackbird
Liminal one
One who sings at
Dawn and dusk
Sings of death and rebirth
You invite me to travel
To worlds of spirit
Yet unseen in me
To open to mystery
And see how the sea moves
Under a rose coloured sky
Look to the skies and you will see her;
as the buzzard soars in the wind drifts
Look to the seas and you will hear her;
as the seal dances with the moon tides
Look to the earth and you will smell her;
as the cow grazes on the clover life
She is the mountain, the wind, the babbling brook;
She is the red, hot fire of your blood
and the stony cold rock of your bones;
She is our landscape,
She is everywhere,
Present in everything
Untouchable, immovable, timeless
Grandmother, Wise Woman, An Cailleach
She Whose Body is the Earth
There is such beauty
in the way that the grass
gracefully accepts the snow
and the snow gracefully accepts
the soft-landing place of
the grass.
They are entirely at ease
with each other’s presence.
Outside the world
of weather warnings and
closed bridges
there is a grace right here,
right now, each flake
whirling and dancing,
each blade
gracefully welcoming,
like an old friend,
the miraculous arrival of snow.
Orla Beaton Poetry 