( BEL - GOD OF BABYLONIA. TENE - FIRE IN OLD IRISH.)
A FIRE FESTIVAL
Bright star light hot plasma rages
Burn now fires of Beltane night.
Sin brands deep down wide as oceans
Broad tales climb the story teller’s tree.
Look back when:
On rest day our teller of what has and was
Cloaked in beaver shell and dusty breath
knowledge sieved by the mother's line
Reminds us that our land seeks a death
Then we must decide our way and why.
On the sky stone she pauses
With honey plate and lightning staff
Our library our line and fate.
On this stone she says
A forest of trees ago
(Is that a long time. I think it is so)
Our first our one told us what to do.
Game is scarce our frames are thin
And like wattle lit through.
Stomachs cramp dry dust no rain
Slow death whimpers bare to touch
In horror we make its religion true.
Our first then says
I will speak of hunters
From the Hazel Grove
They are many in their hunger
Sharp and brave within it.
We eat worms and grass
Then shiver our courage away.
So at dawn's fine chink
With killing sticks we go.
They surrender their lives and their fats flow in our cooking pit/ pig sweet.
For summer now returns to our tribe
But grace falters somewhere outside.
From far Dogger hills see sun flared ice
The slow punishment unfurls the solar sail
As Helios blows sweet fiery breath
No respecter of self but a warmer of land and frosted water too.
Lacking prejudice or principle so we think
As marsh pools thrive and old land wets and dies
Puddled and acid it is flushed through
So her anger eclipses all that is known
But in hope she feeds us still.
Times later in west our refuge place
Beltane’s Eve is clear with promise
Fire banks built four humans high
Stretch flex and undulate through our land
May day be summer's proud host.
Roaring light sets the pace
Waves of energy heat so hot
As if in answer to early grave
The retort is made.
Though we still mourned the loss
Of our ancestral Atlantic home
Yet in our gratitude filled with bold and reverential thanks
We marked our deliverance
From our water logged land.
So let's travel back to a journey made
Questing on an epic scale.
West we go further than leagues can tell
West we go into a future of ours
West we go in journey set in flaming arc.
West she sails her rowers power on between the stars.
Take her ship through darkness and night
Whilst we creep forward in shadows deep
And sleep under her bright light.
What now to believe or where to alight.
To band tight in future tribal home
To clear our space mark the place
Conquerors in all but name
Friendship forged knowledge shared
Ancient graves left in watery dark
Now washed moral and true.
In Salisbury Forest we fought the trees
Slowed down love and skill cut deep.
We crashed them too one on one
A job begins a task begun.
And in our henge on Beltane's night
Burns and roars fire’s power bright
Our toasted faces celebration lit
Tilt up towards our comet gate
A celestial statement to the by and bye.
We are the builders to the sun
We are the guardians of summer fine
Which we tend religiously not modestly.
To celebrate a soil firm and sweet.
In elements named from one to four
Our fire rules, it rules them all.
And with this summer is assured
The building heat bakes something new.
Emmer bread beer gruel fills without gap
Gathered leaves with nut and berry atop.
Fire glazed fish for you and me
Builders settled in their new Atlantis home
Far from the ice flecked sea
With its dangerous habits and designs.
See the wheel rolls on
In the map less lands millennia pass
The food chain climbed hand over hand.
Sometimes ripped and fractured be
Three decennaries and five I'm given
To dwell here in my part.
Listen to me.
This is a privilege a grant life's package
A bargain with no guarantee
To breath clean air flower scents
and hear birdsong fair.
To roam wide and free in this abode
To gaze at dark skies starlit and clear
To sleep under moon glow
To punctuate my day with night
Then taken by damage or disease
By the fates that covet me.
Our souls so sweet and spiky
Vulnerable yet strong
Questing driven on in self doubt
But still in time spirit slips gently away.
Our herbalists and fabulists
Long in tooth wise in mind and spirit
Remind us of our histories bold
And keep our bodies somewhat well.
Unchanging land nurtures our human condition which settles wide forever
On rolling plain and forested hills.
But mark cold tales of ice gods bright
Feel the thunder waves lurking depths
Remains yet in the dim memory of race.
The (Storegga) tsunami of which you know But prayed you knew not.
A story packed and delivered
To a tribe shaped by ancestral guilt
Mead drunk medicine in collective tremor
Round a fire circle bright
Shun the margin's mysterious dark night.
Farmers now in land held writ
Sea far in a locked abode be
Established within a silver ring of sea
A marriage gift in love eternal
Held high in faith for lost home.
We honour our gods to keep and protect
We coax the earth with animal and seed
Shelter more in sophistication than greed
We are the blue and the green
Atom right in fire's red light.
On May Eve with summer promised
All is green and all is bright
Spring flowers warming waters
Expanding in the light
The law maker commands the fires put out
The cattle to be smoke washed
Then relit from Beltane bright energy.
All is purified through fire's great heat
Summer know this to be our truth
That you are forever welcomed by our kind.
©️david fry 18th April 2018.