As the ice receded leaving fresh water
to fill the fissures of earth, it was maybe
in the time of the Fir Bolg or the Tuatha
De Danann, they came upon this lake
and felt the island as that sacred place
to which their god had led them.

And their Priest and Chieftain stood by its shore
and watched as the sun set in its silent-lit
prayer to the goddess that dwelt there,
she who had waited for them
as bride to their wandering god.

And on a Lunar appointed moment
the Priest crossed and carried with him
the lit torch of an oak branch and planted it
into the menstrual soil and out of it
were born the oracles and laws of the tribe,
and her fresh waters bore trout
and fed the land, fructifying its people.

And there then came a time when
belief in local gods was ridiculed
and they recluded to pre-Cambrian
silence, but they hover still above the lake
and the stilled sleeping goddess awaits
those who know that lake gods are
of the one God that hovered above
the waters where Genesis begins.