she held the sorrow and joy of a lifetime,
she held hope for the future locked
in the eyes of her grandchildren.
Those hands that tilled the soil,
that harvested the fruit, shucked corn,
skinned deer, plucked quail. I remember
the way she chopped wood, the heft of the axe,
how she banked the fire, the way she kept us safe.
She brought back the past, made it come alive—
all those old stories of the Ireland she left as a girl,
A time when people were closer to the land.
She held the stories of the Otherworld, a record
of when the old gods walked freely among us,
bringing dreams and mischief to the land.
Her mother lit the candle, as did her mother before her,
placing it in the window so that the ancestors
could find their way home in the dark.
12/8
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