Poem of the Week: St. Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection
St. Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection
On the tiny limestone island
an angel buzzes to Gobnait
in a dream, disrupts her plans,
sends her in search of nine white deer.
She wanders for miles across
sea and land until at last
they appear and rather than
running toward them
she falls gently to wet ground,
sits in silence as light crawls across sky,
lets their long legs approach
and their soft, curious noses surround her.
Breathing slowly, she slides back
onto grass and clover and knows
nothing surpasses this moment,
a heaven of hooves and dew.
Is there a place for each of us,
where we no longer yearn to be elsewhere?
Where our work is to simply soften,
wait, and pay close attention?
She smiles as bees gather eagerly
around her too, wings humming softly
as they collect essence of wildflowers,
transmuting labor into gold.
The feast day of St. Gobnait is 12 February.
The call for submission of poems on the theme of Revolution NOW is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted work — we’ll be responding to everyone over the next couple of weeks.
We are currently accepting submissions to our regular MONOGRAPH (a group of poems by a single author) and New Voices (unpublished poets aged 18-30) features.
Please read the full requirements on our Submissions page, before sending your work.
