This is my favorite blogoshpere tradition, particularly because it coincides with Imbolc and with my Mom’s birthday.  And this is one of my favorite poems.  It’s one I return to  time and time again.  I love Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill’s writing, particularly for the way she intertwines the natural world with mythology and entagles her daily experiences in that web.   This poem has been a comfort on some of the hardest days of my life.   It echoed in my head when Scott was in that terrible car accident a few years ago, and when our dear friend Mike died last spring, and it’s been a touchstone as I’ve tried to help my Mom and other people I love heal from cancer and injuries and the myriad things each day dawns on.  Because, truly, what matters is using what we have to make things as safe and warm as we can for the people we love, all the while watching the world go on around us. 

Aubade
Written by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, translated by Michael Longley

It’s all the same to morning what it dawns on —
On the bickering of jackdaws in leafy trees;
On that dandy from the wetlands, the green mallard’s
Stylish glissando among reeds; on the moorhen
Whose white petticoat flickers around the boghole;
On the oystercatcher on tiptoe at low tide.

It’s all the same to the sun what it rises on —
On the windows in houses in Georgian squares;
On bees swarming to blitz suburban gardens;
On young couples yawning in unison before
They do it again; on dew like sweat or tears
On lilies and roses; on your bare shoulders.

But it isn’t all the same to us that night-time
Runs out; that we must make do with today’s
Happenings, and stoop and somehow glue together
The silly little shards of our lives, so that
Our children can drink water from broken bowls,
Not from cupped hands. It isn’t the same at all.

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