There is a poem by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney based on the legend of St Kevin and the Blackbird:  the blackbird laid its eggs in the saint’s outstretched hand as he prayed.

And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird,

         The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside

         His cell, but the cell is narrow, so

         One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff

         As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands

         And lays in it and settles down to nest.

         Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast ,the

                  tucked

         Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked

         Into the network of eternal life,

         Is moved to pity; now he must hold his hand

Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks

         Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.

         And since the whole thing’s imagined anyhow,

         Imagine being Kevin.  Which is he?

         Self-forgetful or in agony all the time

         From the neck on out down through his

         hurting forearms?

         Are his fingers sleeping?  Does he still feel his knees?

         Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth

         Crept up through him?  Is there distance in his head?

         Alone and mirrored clear in love’s deep river,

         “To labour and not to seek reward,” he prays,

         A prayer his body makes entirely

         For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird,

         And on the riverbank forgotten the river’s name.

 -

Thanks to Geoff who introduced me to this poem, and said he sometimes asks himself:

“What is the blackbird that needs supporting in my life and your life right now?”

M