Patricia Monaghan

 

when I choose, I’m blood-young again,
I rise fresh as washed granite
from foam, I love whom and when

I choose. Here I stand, pomegranate

in hand, ripe as a bud but old, old
as rock, unshakeable now, a power
essentially female and free

....." Hera Renews Her Youth", Patricia Monaghan

I am very saddened to learn today  of the passing of Patricia Monaghan I saw her just this spring at the Women and Mythology Conference in San Francisco, which she was instrumental in creating and coordinating. I also remember her from years at the Starwood Festival, and the community I love so at Brushwood Folklore Center.  Patricia has contributed so much to the Goddess community, the Pagan Community, to consciousness,  and to waking up the world. She will be very much missed.

Thank you Patricia.  You've given all of us so much.   I wish we had more time with you. 

THINGS TO BELIEVE IN

trees, in general; oaks, especially;
burr oaks that survive fire, in particular;
and the generosity of apples
seeds, all of them: carrots like dust,
winged maple, doubled beet, peach kernel;

the inevitability of change
frogsong in spring; cattle
lowing on the farm across the hill;
the melodies of sad old songs
comfort of savory soup;
sweet iced fruit; the aroma of yeast;
a friend’s voice; hard work
seasons; bedrock; lilacs;
moonshadows under the ash grove;

something breaking through

—Patricia Monaghan

 From "Voices of the American Land":

Patricia Monaghan  is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Homefront, on the impact of war on families, and many works of nonfiction including The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog: The Landscape of Celtic Myth and Spirit. Among her literary awards have been a Pushcart Prize and the Phoenix Award for environmental poetry.

In Grace of Ancient Land award winning poet, playwright and essayist Patricia Monaghan writes of and from the Driftless area of Southeastern Wisconsin. The poems reveal the unique typography of stream-cut valleys and limestone-crowned hills that rolls out in a 600 mile swath of forest, farm and field. Patricia Monaghan opens to us the heart of this virtually unknown magical geography. Across wilding orchards, to a blaze of "prairie grasses/pink and scarlet in the dying sun" the poet’s attention is precise, awed, unsentimental. 

Within these arcs Patricia watches light fall across the meadow pearling the hissing woodlands:  

 "the dust-blue grapes ripe among the sunset plums

   was grace itself . . . 

   the embrace of  the unsought present"

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