In honor of the goddess Brigid

Unafraid to Be Known

If a deer doesn’t run away,

but walks toward you.

If you put your camera down

and your heart quiets enough

the sparrows in the stripped thickets

start to sing again.

If suddenly, every time you leave your house

you find antlers on the ground.

If you see a falcon strike a flicker from the sky

laying late in bed on a weekday morning, pick up

yellow feathers on the lawn to prove

you didn’t dream it.

If your dreams draw you on a night without wind

to the north tip of an island at sundown, where,

on a flat pond just a few steps from the restless ocean,

a swan glides through fire on water, ripples from its wake

rocking a skiff moored in the center like a cradle

that holds the sinking light for just those

few seconds we need to praise it, long,

full breaths, saying yes without words.

Then you are known by the great dream of the earth as one

who calms the ocean, laying down at the edge without fear

in the rising dark.