One Wonderful Poem by Cáit O’Neill McCullagh

Hope Is Being Born: A Solstice Nativity

(Remembering bell hooks, 25 September 1952 – 15 December 2021)

 

Hope is being born

this night with all life

here in the skin thin of time’s veil

the door between pasts and now is open

come language this land name it ‘Welcome’

mend and tune the frayed edges of ebb and earth

repair this rivening of shore and ocean

be the thunder and upending storm

be before the rain and after it

be subversive kindness and burst sun upon us

little sister you are here returned and new

to the dawn as she sheds her first ochre tear

come while sapphire cloaks the earth un-wakened

while the world remains still within its own shadows

as the moon’s blade cleaves darkness

silvered dust loiters at this cruck-cradled arm

a servant curved to the grace of your sleep

blessed numb by lightsome burden

pulse tethered to your every breath

always mouth for mouth I kiss kin to your ears

release the raven to call us home

its wings fly fugitive into the wind

the wild-heart dove coos covenant

unfurled from feathered lips

make my heart surrender refuge

be love be love be love beloved

 

Be love be love be love beloved

make my heart surrender refuge

unfurled from feathered lips

the wild-heart dove coos covenant

it wings fly fugitive into the wind

release the raven to call us ‘home’ always

always, pulse tethered to your every breath

blessed numb by lightsome burden

a servant curved to the grace of your sleep

silvered dust loiters at this cruck-cradled arm

as the moon’s blade cleaves the darkness

the world remains still within its own shadows

come while sapphire cloaks this earth, un-wakened

to the dawn as she sheds her first ochre tear

little sister you are here returned and new

be subversive kindness and burst sun upon us

be before the rain and after it

be the thunder and upending storm

repair this rivening of shore and ocean

mend and tune the frayed edges of ebb and earth

come language this land name it ‘Welcome’

the door between pasts and now is open

here in the skin thin of time’s veil

this night with all life

hope is being born

 

 

Cáit O’Neill McCullagh is a straying ethnologist and archaeologist in the Scottish Highlands. She started becoming a poet in December 2020, and since then her poems have appeared in Northwords Now, Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis, Drawn to the Light, Bella Caledonia, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and The Banyan Review. Cáit tweets at @kittyjmac.