Autumn Grope

9  October 2012

Today, 9 October, being bright and sunny (for a change) I ventured into the garden to cut the grass. The leaves had turned to their Autumn colours, and Jimmy Saville’s groping career had been exposed on TV. This poem popped into my head.

 

The mythical Goddess (Brigid or Bride) has two faces, one that of a beautiful young woman, the other the face of an old hag. Every living thing is birthed by the young Goddess, and, to leave this life and pass over to the other dimension, we all must pass back through the vagina of the hag. Images of the vaginal hag in Ireland are often referred to, in the English language, as “Sheila na Gig,” often mistakenly translated as “Woman of Breasts.” The old Irish term was “Gast Gaoithe, (or, in the very oldest spelling, “Gast Gáite”) which is pronounced “Gossed Gweeha.” “Gast” means hag and Gaoithe (or Gáite, pronounced the same), means vaginal.

Although the sun is beaming still,
I feel that Winter’s moving in.
The leaves that just were o, so green,
Are yellow, crimson and, in between,
Every shade of flaming red,
As if to shout: we are not dead.

Sadly, too, I dread to note
The young girls seem to flee my grope.
The cackling hag now bares her gear
And whispers, darling, come in here.
To which I shriek, o no, o no!
I yet have fields of oats to sow.

From me, hag, turn your face and hide.
I still desire to bed the bride.


Recitation of "Autumn Grope" by the author: