NeuroDivine

Some days, a poem finds you.

Walking through Fitzgerald Park in Cork, I came across a poem displayed beneath the trees: Brigid by Catherine Ronan, part of the Poetry in the Park Collection. A turquoise panel, a weathered wooden frame, and words that made me stop.

Living so close to Kildare, I was a bit surprised to meet Brigid there in Cork. Leaves overhead, grass beneath the sign, the park’s ordinary life continuing around her. The poem brings together flame and water, trees and rivers, human hands at work, and the turning of the seasons. Reading it outdoors allowed these images room to breathe.

One phrase particularly stayed with me:

Born between two thresholds

In the poem, Brigid inhabits the meeting places of different traditions and images: the saint and the older sacred stories, Christian devotion and the rhythms of the earth. Ronan keeps them close together, letting the language of poetry explore their resonances.

Thresholds are familiar territory for many of us. We live between certainty and doubt, illness and everyday activity, the selves we have known and the people we are becoming. Sometimes faith means learning how to stand in such places without demanding that every uncertainty be resolved.

As a writer, I was also caught by Brigid’s association with poets, smiths, and healers. Words, metal, bodies: each asks for attention and care. Each can resist our intentions. There is patience involved in finding the right phrase, shaping something useful, or tending someone whose pain cannot simply be taken away.

I am glad that someone made room for poetry in the park. A poem in a public place is an invitation offered without knowing who will accept it. We can walk past, glance at a line, or stop long enough for the words to interrupt the day.

Today, in Cork, I stopped.

And there was Brigid, waiting among the trees.