Beauty and depth in Birr woman's poem

“A Place in all our Hearts - A history of St Brendan's RC Church Birr” was launched a couple of weeks ago in the town by the Bishop of Killaloe Fintan Monahan.
During the launch, Rita Kelly, who has been living in Birr for several years, read out one of her much-loved poems.
The poem is called “What is Heaven?” It's a lovely piece, which The Midland Tribune is reprinting because we want to share its philosophy and beauty with our readers.

Or as Matthew asks:
What is the kingdom of heaven?

It is many things, he tells us,
It is a field, it is a seed, it is a fisherman’s net,
It is a ‘valuable hidden treasure’, it is the
Gnashing of teeth when we cannot find it,
Or when we cannot enter it.
There is always an elite, let in,
We remain outside in the dark
Cursing our fate and our past rejections.
What we do and what we did
Has eternal consequences.
The pearl of great price will not elude us
If we search in the small spaces, the little places,
We never reach heaven because we deserve it:
It is a gift, it is a grace, we have been saying forever,
Thy kingdom come, it is now and not yet now,
It is pending perhaps in this very moment:

Is heaven the thrush’s eggs?
Or thrush’s mottled breast?
Or the summer hang of chestnuts,
Waiting their ripeness in a wealth of green?

The squirrel’s tail is all fluffed out with joy.
She has found an array of bulbs, underground,
Snowdrops, full of food to fatten her up, right now,
No deferred gratification, no saving up
For the inclement day. Heaven is now and here
Before the shadows lengthen, before the rough winds
Unease the leaves of the high-reaching beech;
Before we make fast the door against
The prevailing winds. Before the year dives
Into its trough of darkness – there is heaven now
In these observed moments, these cross-sections
of the world in which we find ourselves,
charmed by the egg, the seed, the field –
the thrush sings, full to us, with heartening ease
in notes of unblemished confidence.