The lightcatchers

For Maeve on her eleventh birthday

St. Brigid's Day comes storming in
I make my act of faith in Spring.
The mystery of planting - what grows
In bleak or lush places is on us.
A courgette swells from orange flowers
And the untilled rock yields sea thrift.

We reaped the wind and you came
Child of hibiscus and cinnamon.
No statue from a cold museum
You spark and shine through every room
In the house. Home is the husk.
Soon you will shuck it off to go dancing.

Look how for centuries we nourished sons,
Buried the girl children, bound their feet.
Did we think it would make no difference?
As we slouch towards the millenium
The portents are all for the world ending.
Soldiers are sprouting along every border.
They are tumbling
Out of their mothers' wombs with guns.
Something has changed.
You are eleven this Saint Brigid's Day.
Last year's party girls in coloured dresses
Are swirling over our honey timbered floor,
A carousel of lightcatchers
Tinkling like Christmas chimes.
This year they will be more faceted still.
The music slows.

I hang a cross of fresh rushes.
There is a stretching under the ground,
A reaching for the sun.
Brid, open your throat and bless them!
Let this treasury of minded daughters
Planted as saphires
Ripen across the continents into rubies.