[A dialogue between Brigid and her boss, Hollis. Hollis has called Brigid into his office and gestured to close the door.]

Brigid: Hey, sorry. You know how hard it is getting him outta here when he's got a problem.

Hollis: I do, I do. Go ahead and pop a squat for a second, dear.

Brigid: So what's going on?

Hollis: Brigid, your fingers are always so ashy.

[Brigid wipes her hands on the darkest part of her faded slacks.]

Brigid: Oh, yeah, that's a bad habit that's getting worse. I was just in the bathroom, too. So I guess I should probably start washing my hands more often.

Hollis: No, hon, it's not about the ashes -- you're smoking **** in the office. More and more it seems like.

Brigid: Oh I mean, I've been smoking for a while.

Hollis: Not in the office.

Brigid: Well, now I do.

Hollis: You don't see anything wrong with that?

Brigid: I mean, you never really said anything about it when I brought it in the first time, so I just kinda kept on going. And that, that was like, at least two weeks ago, I think.

Hollis: I don't think it's been as long as you're thinking.

Brigid: I see what you're trying to do here. However long doesn't matter -- I know for a fact you've seen me before and didn't say anything.

Hollis: I'm saying something now.

Brigid: Yes you are.

Brigid: Oh.

Hollis: Look, hon. Could you just go use the balcony round back?

Brigid: Well sure, but I kinda have to be at the desk, you know? That's why I never leave on my breaks, either.

Hollis: Brigid, it looks bad.

Brigid: What, smoking ****?

Hollis: Yes, it looks real bad. It reflects the professionalism of the Human Services Office. Or the lackthereof.

Brigid: How?

Hollis: I believe it's popular opinion that being under the influence of any substance impairs your ability to dutifully perform your work, and perform work that sets the best possible standard.

Brigid: Actually, and I kid you not, it really, really helps me perform my work. See, without it, I believe, I would not be able to live up to your standards.

Hollis: You're acting like--

Brigid: Hollis, please, for the love of god. I'm such an awesome employee, right? Always upright. Always for the good of the people. Last night! Last night I went to Davis's place for some coffee.

Hollis: I thought you were going to stop doing that.

Brigid: You should have seen it. Oh god, the mess that went down. Unruly mercenary helping hands serving fists up to unappreciative patrons, *** workers slinging emselves over tables and the bar, sweat and all that other nasty body water mixing up next to all the food and alcohol.

Hollis: What--

Brigid: Hollis, I went out back for a cigarette and there were people milling around in the alley ******* each other. People are ******* ******* behind Davis's place, and you're worried about just, a little bit of the good stuff defacing the image our city.

Hollis: Jesus Christ, okay, alright. You're right, that's disgusting.

Brigid: Told ya.

Hollis: When you gotta smoke, just ask Helen to watch the front for you.

Brigid: What if I just put the pipe away when someone's at the counter?

Hollis: I'd really prefer outside.

Brigid: Okay, how about, if I go to the window. So that way there's no smoke inside?

Hollis: You're just about ******* impossible, little girl. Forget I said anything, forget the whole ****** thing. I ask you for one favor, and you can't even do that.

Brigid: I do all your other favors.

[Brigid gets up and walks to the door.]

Hollis: You're still giving me that discount on Cheese, right?

Brigid: Absolutely. I'm gonna take a break and go out back for a cigarette.

LÁ FHÉILE BRIDE - SAINT BRIGID'S DAY

( for Noreen )

even Brigid's statue
protects the little birds
nestling behind her

and as a little garsún
wasn't it to the birds
I would pray

believing that Brigid
was releasing them
to Spring skies

*

St. Brigid's Garrison Church in the Curragh Camp where I was born...this statue was woven into the fabric of my childhood. Birds used to nest behind her wooden cloak. Her cross is the only cross I can bear and was a staple of every Irish home when my childhood was in full bloom. Great story of her going to ask the King for a bit of land to build a convent on and he laughed and said you can have as much as your cloak can cover. So being the good saint she was....she spread her cloak and it covered miles and miles. Never mess with a saint!

Of course it is also the beginning of Imbolc (pronounced 'im'olk')that good old Pagan festival if you are that way inclined.

An Irish word that was originally thought to mean 'in the belly' although many people translate it as 'ewe's milk' (oi-melc)all associated with the pregnancy of ewe and the giving of milk. The Curragh Plains are of course festooned with many many sheep so that made it all the more real for us.

It is a festival based on seasonal changes associated with the onset of lambing and the blooming of the Blackthorn.

She is the Goddess of among other things....those curious creatures we call....poets.

Indeed wasn't auld Jemmy de Joist born the very next day in the wake of her feast day and the days beginning to lengthend.

An old proverb from Scotland tells us....
Thig an nathair as an toll
Là donn Brìde,
Ged robh trì troighean dhen t-sneachd
Air leac an làir.

The serpent will come from the hole
On the brown Day of Bríde,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground.

Spring has indeed been sprung from the depths of winter.

The Statue of St. Brigid & Children can be seen over the main entrance. The statue is eight feet in height and was carved in teak by the late Oisin Kelly who is best known for his The Children of Lir (1964) in the Garden of Remembrance,, Jim Larkin (1977) O'Connell Street and his Chariot of Life (1982) at the Irish Life Center.

And didn't auld Seamus give him a mention in his second "Glanmore Sonnet."

"'These things are not secrets but mysteries',
Oisin Kelly told me years ago
In Belfast, hankering after stone
That connived with the chisel, as if the grain
Remembered what the mallet tapped to know."

So from the wee buachaill I once was I could join the dots from statue to statue and all the way into a Heaney sonnet Brigid lore of yore.