At Bridget’s Well
By Doireann Ní Ghríofa
When rain fell on a path of stone,
one by one, we appeared alone.
Each of us wore a different face,
but we were all the same –
drawn by ache to lift green latches,
drawn by want to walk the dark
passage. Past paper stares, we knelt
and wept, we who fed the well in rivulets,
whose plunged wrists trembled
with vessels of blue violets.
We each spoke a spell of stone
and in her gloom heard prayers turn poems.
Ask her, Bríd, what will be
come of us?
Listen. Liquid, the syllables;
the echo, luminous.
Rock Bottom Homestead 