Seasonal Poetry

[jez]

Winter Moons...

The longest nights are here - sit down, oh Sun!
Stretch out your white-noon arms in blue-gold haze,
Take off your red-gold crown and be at ease,
Your longest rest between these shortest days.

Your brother Moon rides high and proud he stands
His face reflecting all your hidden light
As you creep low, he leaps amongst the stars
His path opposed to yours on these bright nights.

But soon, as his swift steeds tread lightly on
He'll race you home, though doing so takes all,
And as his strength is used he wanes and fades
Until his path brings both to evening's hall.

He'll touch your hand and as you sink and sit
His need for you makes all his striving worth
For three nights, while the skies hold only stars,
He welcomes you each golden eve with love.

Between these two bright moons the year is born,
As swift with Dawn and Evening Stars you ride
And rush to fog-filled dusk from frost-cut dawn -
The golden Sun, the Moon's most sacred bride.

It does not last - three nights each month are spent
Before he is not there when you come home
And you must rise and light the world again
While he lies still abed and all alone.

This winter, then, will pass - the light grows strong
And once again the Spring will come and show
That Ragnarok is not yet timed - not now...
Though each and every year it could be so.


© Jezreell Midwinter Eve 2005

[jez]

Spring Evennight
(ttto Sweet Nightingale)

The winter is done!
Look out for the Sun!
As She rises up early each dawn!
From the South turns Her way
‘Till on Spring Evenday
She will rise in the east on the morn!
She will rise in the east on the morn!

So this eve we will ride
With our kin at our side
To the highest of hills at our bounds!
And we’ll sing with the best
As She sets in the west
And then feast ‘till the dawn comes around!
And then feast ‘till the dawn comes around!

Oh glorious Sun!
We will greet your return!
For the long winter nights are now done!
And you’ll spread sunlit cheer
‘Till the noon of the year
And the dark will give place to the Sun!
And the dark will give place to the Sun!

© Jezreell 2006

[Sìle]

An Evening's Musing

Autumn lingers on the evening air,
As the sun warms even the bluest sky to pastel apricot.
The days remain muggy and a little warm,
Whilst the evenings are fresher and dry.
Autumn hovers but dares not enter,
As Summer is loathe to go.
But soon the trees will lose their leaves,
And Jack Frost will sneakily start his show.
Summer will be gone, but not forgotten,
And Autumn will be seen by the fire's glow.

© Webwitch 2007

[Craig]

Well done both of you, I can almost feel the frost on my face

[megli]

Autumn Equinox

Midges feebly knead yellow air.
Pignuts fatten; smoke drifts
From unseen fires, and under earth
The languid, silent seeping of grey filaments,
The almost-invisible hair of ghosts. Spores
flavour the heavy autumn air like saffron.

Here and there,
ear-fungi on elder branches prick up
to catch the trumpeting of sudden chanterelles,
and startle at the clatter of pigeons
Trundling home to roost,
smoky-feathered.

Here the honey of last light is sweetening decay.
Leaves freckle the skin of the sun,
and the sky covers her own face,
aching again for the caress of swallows.

And slowly, slowly...
Summer shoulders his leaf-burden,
Patient, drowsy, and picks his way
slight and spindle-legged,
off through the darkening wood.


* * *


And a Lughnasadh one:


O Lugh of the Long Arm -

You arch over earth
To kiss the corn,
To call it forth,
To see it born.

Your hillslopes flaunt,
breathe golden bees.
From parched fields
Scant dewfall flees.

Your chest is opened
Your heart exposed
Your blood like bronze
And amber flows.

Sun sears your flesh
Asprawl in thistles
Through your wound
Your life’s breath whistles.

You laid you down
In fragrant thyme,
To bleed the sun’s
Entranced decline.

You wrestled harvest,
Corn to capture –
Now we see at sunfall
Your face of rapture.

[Heron]

TALIESIN

Urien Rheged’s bard, I lit a spark
In the Old North where the dark
Came early for comrades cradled
In Cymru’s egg
and an Easter that was addled.

***

Still I sang my songs for him –
Not prophecies of the coming gloom
But celebrations of munificence,
Spells cast over the abyss
in complaisance.

Listen:
Riches fall from his hand
Like spray cascading to the sand,
Beads trickle into pockets
Of poets, not gleanings got
From the chaff but gifts to lift
The heart even of strangers
In his hall. How many times
I have told him this:

“Until I gasp my last breath
And stare in the face of death,
My life wont be worth living
If I don’t praise Urien.”

This praise
For meat and mead
Is my lord’s due, my rent
To life as it is lived here, a tithe
Of song apart from the nine that are sung
Secretly where the silent harp is strung.

***

They call this place Eden
And the river runs like silk
on its silty bed.
Light hangs in the air
late on midsummer nights
Bats flicker through the bridge’s
old stone arches.
This is shape-shifting time, hovering
on borders of history, place and occasion.


A motor-biker leans his steed
Into the curve and over the bridge
Heading for the mead hall.
A huge extractor fan wafts chip-fry onto the night air

But not here;
The vale of Eden widening westward
To Solway and Scotland:
Idon in Rheged
Running with the blood of the slain
Like wine for the victory feast.

***

Over the sea-river
In Galloway
Mary made peace with her God
But not her people
At the abbey of Dundrennan
And sailed from Scotland.

Rheged a realm divided
Taliesin’s voice dead in the lands
Of Urien, Mynyddog and Gwallog:
A Tudor rose;
Rules in London.

[Craig]

Does life get better than this? The only way it could be improved is to hear these poems from the bards themselves over a campfire.

[arth_frown]

craig said:

Does life get better than this? The only way it could be improved is to hear these poems from the bards themselves over a campfire.

With a large horn of mead

[Craig]

And you just had to ruin it didn'tcha? Give me a flask of the old Valerian please, you can keep your honey-soup.

[arth_frown]

;D You better pass to the left of me then and I pass right.

[Deleted]

Can I be at the opposite side of the fire to you two? I figure this means I will get both at the same time, should be interesting.... *hic*

[Deleted]

Does life get better than this? The only way it could be improved is to hear these poems from the bards themselves over a campfire.

...How about a sound file?

[jez]

I would if I could - but none of my singing has been recorded

--

Jez

[bram]

A dodgy one of mine .......


Autumn

Rain on leather clad leaf
Flutter and fall to lie in damp sleep
Lunar lady easing passage to ancestor
Slow disintegration into earth
Darkness like a blanket embraces
Cold consuming sodden earth
Elemental return

[jez]

Yule Wreath

Demanding sacrifice, I am cut, pulled, dragged in out of sun and rain and frost, torn with blades into strands of myself, born aloft to cries of joy and celebration, sorted, arranged as if I lived still, though I began to die as I took your blood...

And now, for two moons in the long winter, I hang, all-green, shining in the light of candles, a stubborn and many-prickled protector of your home, my father bribed with whisky and mead, to mark the longest nights and watch, with you and your guests, for the return of the sun.

And your hands bear my scars until the longest night.

© Jez 2005

[jez]

Pagans at Yule

They meet at a local pub
(One with good-sized toilets)
Where they get changed
And cover themselves in big coats...

They dress in their best robes
Carry cakes and wine
Have prepared everything very carefully
Including a print-out of Multimap for the newbies...

They arrive at the site
And park carefully off the road
And follow the only one who knows the way
To a secluded grove...

And after an hour they ask each other
Whether anyone has brought a torch...


© Jez 2005

[abhaill]

Songs of the Wheel

All written in the same key / time sig / tempo, designed to be sung as a cycle, beginning and ending with the current season.

Samhain

From the storm cloud the rain falls
From the tree branch the leaves are falling
From the heavens the wind calls
And the bean sidhe's voice is calling

Winter Solstice

Stalight shines upon us now
Snowflakes fall to the ground
Icicles hang from the pine-tree bough
Stillness and silence abound

Imbolc

Spindles and fingers reach into the bleak sky
Life slumbers under a blanket of earth
Kindle, awaken, let memory be shaken!
Midnight has passed, for light a rebirth!

Vernal Equinox

Bud, bud, open up now to the
Sun, sun, warm up our bones
Rain, rain, loosen the soil as a
Bird, bird, daybreak intones

Bealtaine

Lie on the sweet grass and drink in the light
Let your heart soar like a swallow in flight
Lift up your eyes to the blossoming trees
And breathe in the newness of life on the breeze

Summer Solstice

Climb, climb up to the hilltop
To greet the rising sun
Bask in its rays and sing out your praise
Before the sweet darkness has come

Lughnasadh

Harvest the fruits of your labour in the morning
Share in the feast of your bounty at noon
Kick off your shoes and go dancing in the evening
Welcome the night with a high haunting tune

Autumn Equinox

Blustery the weather that brings us all together
Beside the hearth we gather, with thankfulness we sing
When cold it is at nighttime, and day's a sunny bright time
Then reddening the leaves are and fruit is ripening

Samhain

From the storm cloud the rain falls
From the tree branch the leaves are falling
From the heavens the wind calls
And the bean sidhe's voice is calling

[mooncrone]

Oct 26, 2008 16:16:57 GMT -1 jez said:

Pagans at Yule

They meet at a local pub
(One with good-sized toilets)
Where they get changed
And cover themselves in big coats...

They dress in their best robes
Carry cakes and wine
Have prepared everything very carefully
Including a print-out of Multimap for the newbies...

They arrive at the site
And park carefully off the road
And follow the only one who knows the way
To a secluded grove...

And after an hour they ask each other
Whether anyone has brought a torch...


© Jez 2005

I love this...  because I can so totally identify with it!