Goddess Wisdom

The morning on the mountain woke as a swirl of light.

There was no sun above the rim, no moon or stars

above the wordless woods, no flaming fire in the furze.

Yet the mystical light shaped itself into a moving mist

surging into Killary, returning the fjord to the void.

She said, Go back to the primal light on the first day;

On that first day God summoned a special ray of light,

not sunlight, not the light of the moon or stars.

The light was born by which all things were seen,

A special light, invisible, unknown to human eyes.

I asked her what she could see in the eerie mist.

She said she could see beyond to the source

before God stretched the heavens out like a curtain,

before flaming fire, angel winds, roiling seas, crop-crowned hills.

Ages before God drew a circle on the face of the deep.

Long before the sixth day when god created man,

God made wisdom, a female force, the first act of old,

Her divine pattern is the beginning of God’s work.

She is the way to knowledge, the source of ought that endures.

She was God’s daughter, the firstborn mother of everyone.

The mist strayed along the shore, searched empty famine fields.
This was for me like being born before word-shaped creation,

in the awesome state of absolutely nothing at all.

She said, Seek out mother wisdom, for without wisdom
nothing worthwhile ever takes shape. I was mystified.