You want to honour me? Oh really?

Then seek out the holy well,

Seek out the shady cloister,

And THEN

Get your ass to a graveyard!

Find the oldest tomb wherein a woman lies.

Light a smoke, pour that rum

(The type that blisters with hot chillies).

Pile nine stones, puff nine puffs, spit nine spits

And listen.

I was a Goddess once,

The first to keen.

I forged and healed and stood

To pronounce my poems and my judgements.

And then I was a Saint,

Under new management.

In patient prayer I knelt,

Weaving a cross from simple rushes

And fame from my submission.

And then, when they swept away my women,

Unhappy ones, chained with indentures,

I moved overseas and laboured alongside them,

Sweating in the febrile swamp.

How could I not go?

They needed me,

For home, for healing, for comfort

And for magic.

I made new friends, met new Gods,

Began my new career,

And up I rose, from servitude.

I became protector of women, a Guardian of the Dead,

Fishing souls from mystic waters and whispering their names.

I married a fine man, with a big voice and a tall hat,

(A Baron, no less, on a Saturday night)

And I learned to cuss and dance.

I am Brighid, Bride, Maman Brigitte.

I am Goddess, Saint and Loa.

My signs are flame and cross and veve.

I have been with you

Through changing times and lands and faiths.

I am writing to remind you.

I am waiting for a letter back.