Talking Saint Brendan Blues by Jesse Keith Butler Feast of Saint Brendan the Navigator, May 16, 2008 On the feast-day of Saint Brendan, I was standing on the shoulder of Highway 1 outside of Winnipeg—the last upholder of former rights of access to the common thoroughfare— or that’s how I explained it to myself. I waited there, my thumb jabbed out to catch a ride. Around me, swells of prairie waved golden out into the morning—amber tides that carry on westward to the Rocky Mountains, eastward to the Shield— where worn-down nubs of rock bulge out, unevenly concealed, beneath Ontario, and eastward out to Newfoundland, where Brendan might’ve landed once. I stood there, nothing planned, but hoping for safe passage. Back in Winnipeg that morning, I’d learned it was Saint Brendan’s day, and prayed—perhaps adorning my prayer with vacant words—but still, the saints don’t misconstrue a call for help. You don’t have to believe this, but it’s true— and, whether grace or luck, sometimes life clicks without a hiccup. I hadn’t waited long there on that shoulder when a pickup came swerving up. And, written on the side in bright bold letters, the truck said BRENDAN—then Construction maybe? The sub-headers were lost in my astonishment. He welcomed me aboard, and drove an hour east with the accelerator floored and firm hands on the tiller—Brendan in a baseball cap. He dropped me off and wished me well. Rides came without a gap from there the whole way home. So tell me, how do you make sense of chance and tide? Some folks just shrug and say coincidence as if that word alone can tell us why things coincide. Some folks say just don’t ever be dependent on a ride. I’m sure that’s great advice. But let me tell you some that’s greater: Don’t set yourself adrift at sea without a navigator.
Jesse Keith Butler is an Ottawa-based poet who recently won first prize in the ESU Formal Verse Contest. His poems have been published in a variety of journals, including Arc Poetry, New Verse Review, Dappled Things, Pulp Literature, and Blue Unicorn. His first book, The Living Law (Darkly Bright Press, 2024), is available wherever books are sold. Find him at www.jessekeithbutler.ca.
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