Imbolc

The lamb in the womb, the milk in the teat:
three Brigids healing wounds and writing verse
and beating out the shoe on the anvil --

Luck? That's for those who don't believe
in the writing of a cloud on the hill. A spinning coin
is offered to the sky who gives it back

hot with meaning, warm to the touch,
falling this way or that because nothing (but a man)
lands on its edge and stands.

Imbolc, in the milk, in the family way,
even if the lambs came early this year,
gray and unsteady in the wet 

pasture, while the snow was still falling on the ridge;
and even if the white-headed eagles strayed 
from the river to the freeway to attend,

even so, we light our candles -- or say, yet more,
because if this year is wrong shaped or wrinkled
next year will need, even more,

the winking coin spun high in the sun,
and Brigid's shadow written on the hills.