Three weeks ago I made my debut in a new-to-me eMagazine, MasticadoresUsa, with a poetry fragment embedded into a mini-memoir, a form to which I gravitate. The editor Barbara Leonhard provided a wondrous picture for my contribution “with whom?” :

“The Coming of Bríde” by John Duncan (1917)

My paths today – down by the shore at Helmsdale, Sutherland, where I was returning four “fossil stones” to where I found them a couple of years ago – were illuminated by the shining of Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaris) which is also known as Bride’s-wort. Yes, the same Bride, whose saint-day is 1 February at Imbolc.

I’m sharing a link to the Masticadores memoir/poem here today. It further expands the part-poem I’ve copied here.

Also I’m choosing to link to dVerse Poets’ Open Link Night an experimental addition (below) of further fragments that are written in the same metrical form but at different times during the Covid-years. They relate variously to my experiences of the landscape and woods around Brora, Sutherland in relation to the Celtic Triple-Goddess Brighid and her patronage of poets, cattle and sheep, iron-smithing and – am I right with this one? – bees.

And by the time you read this, Lughnasadh – one of the cross-quarters in the Celtic Wheel of the Year, and the one with perhaps the subtlest energy – will be upon us, on 1 August. Blessings of bright Brighid!

from Brighid's awakening
 
O yesterday I harvested as Grail
such joy, from branches tortured by the flail:
ripped stems of ever-flowering Gorse
& Ash - the World's Tree, and the Fire's remorse.
I gathered too - for it was 'ready broke -
a twig with nascent buds of Sessile Oak.
 
Close by the little grove - Carn Liath astride -
with jewels of lichen, rock & sea, the Bride.
& Triple too, the attributes of She
who, as Earth Goddess, welcomes every Tree
that honours  (Ruadháin, Aiteann) - and rejoys
in - songs & myths & wisdoms of Her voice.
 
Copyright © Kathy Labrum McVittie 7 January 2025
All Rights Reserved 
First published in MasticadoresUsa 12 July 2025

and now for the first time:

fragment i

Repurposing the axe, the blade
I enter awe-fully the glade
attending to the Bumble-bee
who shows me - queenly - to be free
and now beside her in the porch -
despite the sun - I light my torch

© Kathy Labrum McVittie 23 March 2020

fragment ii

Behind the pen and ink, the hand
beneath the oats and peas, the land
below the Highland cow, the soil
above the coal, the brick, the spoil
and - where the Curlews plaintive cry -
the Hare, the Wolf, the Dragonfly.

© Kathy Labrum McVittie 17 January 2021

fragment iii

we renegotiate our stance -
I come, exultant, to the dance
proclaiming, by the time I die:
"O this is me", and "it is I"
and Mistletoe on Dur-Oak tree
with Ivy, Holly, blessed be

© Kathy Labrum McVittie 3 November 2021