Brighid

In Celtic mythology, Brighid was the goddess of smithcraft, healing, poetry, and knowledge. Her festival, attended only by women, was celebrated at calving time. 

Listen to the winds of Spring in Wyomin'
Chinookin' through wet, slow-falling snow.
It wanders, and whispers like sighing women
With secrets to tell of the things they know--
When the calves start comin'.

In the long, dark nights just sit and listen
To the old, old tales that a woman tells
When no cow is in labor, no tail is switchin'.
The best songs come in the calvin' lulls,
When the men are sleepin'.

There flows in our veins the fightin' strains
Of ancient Celtic cattle people,
So here in the West on good grass plains
The souls of the old ones chose to settle,
And claim these prized terrains.

Yet still that old Celt blood flows free
And the timeless tales are sung
Of Patrick, and Finn, and the goddess Brig--
Brighid that gracious, warrior one
With the Earth at her knee.

Spear in her hand, crowned as a judge,
Surrounded by herds and poetry,
Goddess of smithy, healing, and knowledge
Three sisters form one trinity--
Become a mystic bridge.

Born neither in, nor out, of a house in the dawn,
Raised on the milk of a red-eared cow,
She speaks to us and her flame burns on
In our minds, our hearts, and our wisdom, now,
Though her virgins are gone.

Our mothers still tend, on calvin' nights
In early Spring, to tell their girls
The lore of birth--the rituals and rights
Of women--and how life hurls
Bliss and pain, joy and frights.

Loving and strong women stand in her shadow
Fierce Brighids in these lonesome hills--
Women of learning tend their cattle,
Shoe their horses, pound their anvils,
And doctor from saddles.

So here in Wyoming her fires are burnin'
Brighid, great goddess, she still lives on
Submerged in the secretive womanly learnin'
Now, as then, when the men are gone
And the calves are comin'.