“Blindfolded, I would know….”

Grian’s sun-face lights the leaves and limns the branches as the robins strike up an orchestra.

Last night, I was reading Gabrielle Roth’s Sweat Your Prayers when I came upon this poem, which seems appropriate for Aonghus Og and Caer Ibormeith, the subject of contemplation lately — and apropos in its own right, since Sunday was our wedding anniversary. It’s by Maude Meehan and called “Choice.”

Blindfolded
I would know
the touch
the taste
the smell of you
among a thousand others
and knowing, choose you.

To me, that choice is both the defining moment of myth and of love itself. In a field of swans, he chooses the right one, without hesitation. They look identical to our eyes, a sea of long necks and white feathers — but to the eyes of love, the swans are not the same. The heart can pluck the beloved from a sea of strangers.

Another poem, this one by Yeats, that I frequently use to invoke Aonghus Og: “The Song of Wandering Angus.” You can hear Donovan singing a version of this here. 

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