CONTINUING

The story about Brigid everyone knows
Is of her hanging a cloak on a sunbeam.
Seldom is it remembered she could weave
With cold moonlight. Sometimes in her wrath
She would move three long fingers just so,
And a star guttered in its socket and died.
Before she was a saint she was the goddess
Of standing water. Her shift at the bar ends;
The ice in the machine tries to follow her out.

AN OLD TALE

The story is well known: on a hot day

St. Brigid unfastened her cloak

And hung it on a sunbeam.

The beam was astonished; "I have crossed

96,260,000 miles,

(Give or take the odd foot or three),

Through trackless space at unthinkable speed

Only to find myself at last a coathook?"

"Don't blame me," said the cloak;"I had every intent

Of falling in a heap to the ground, perhaps

Picking up some dirt and leaves while there

But who has it in them to say no to Brigid?"