Caitlin “Cado” Kennedy, An Chailleach Ghaelbhastún

There was once a woman who listened too closely.
She did not seek noise or chatter, but pattern—
symmetry—
the pulse behind things,
the hum that bridges life
and death
and story.

She walked the streets of an island made of commerce and salt and time.
Instead of flinching at its window-dressed tragedies,
she made it her chapel.

She believed that truth and beauty were not opposites,
but twins revealed only through patience—
like life and death themselves.

She carried too much at moments:
hearts, little lanterns strung across her ribs.
Solitude was both her sanctuary and her sorrow.
When the world became too shallow, too algorithmic,
she stepped out of it.
She wanted to see, not scroll.

Her gift was alchemy:
to take the dust of archives and the ache of the sea
and make of them something human again.

She loved old buildings, forgotten women, lost songs—
because to witness is to resurrect.

She stood in the brick-lined streets,
eyes closed tightly yet seeing so much more
than shops and photo ops.

She saw Mollie, and Sam, and Lula, and Kitty, and Nicholas, and Bettie.
She saw a Free State of Mind
and forgot the rules that said she could not.
Because she would.