GABRIEL ROSENSTOCK

BLIAIN AN BHANDÉ - YEAR OF THE GODDESS

One does not often think of the tripartite goddess who gave her blessed name to Ireland -  Éire, Banba, Fódla - not to mention other goddesses who have left their trace on the landscape, Danu of the Paps of Danu for instance.

Devotional poetry in India goes by the name of bhakti. In the heel of the hunt, a bhakta does not really adore or pine for any god or  goddess; as with Mirabai’s love affair with Giridhar (Krishna), or Muktabai singing her own glistening Self; what is sought and what is praised is the brightness of eternal brightness, our shared Self, knowing neither birth nor death.

Some words in this poem sequence are ‘shaded’ to allow for another reading of a line, or a faint echo, a game much cherished by the Celtic poets of yore. Thus, the reader sees the word as the world when written as world and encounters  bhakti invocations such as ma (mother) hidden in the word mad!

Gabriel Rosenstock