Aengus 2

This one came from the Oracle.

 

I took a breath upon the wind today

as full of life as rock and rose

and sweet as spring water flowing.

 

A berry fell dark cycle closing

the long and lonely season ending

the fat trout rises.

 

And yet the light is cold and blue

above the wandering trees

and the breeze listens to songs I cannot hear.

 

Sometimes I think I could follow

a river wild and free

to the world’s end the wind’s end

 

but in between lies winter and the frozen strand.

Time flows on and never back like gentle waves

and never softens to summer.

 

Life flows on and never softens

to the gentle waves of sunlight

that ripple dippled with winged jewels.

 

Only by moonlight do the apples gleam

and I reach up to pluck them

above the endless silver stream.

Aengus

 

Beneath the hazels in the pool,

where speckled salmon turned about himself,

in the water mirror silvered smooth,

he looked and saw his love

among a flock of swans,

white wings beating,

rising from a moonlit lake,

and in his madness fled

where feathered sleep would never find

him, nor the sun

at morning break, and time and tides

had ceased to run.

 

Haibun for gardening

Tussling with thistles taller than me, sprouting like something I saw in a black and white Doctor Who and remembered with terror for decades, in the sun too hot for spring and crickets vying with blackbirds for airspace, I feel the year running away from me already.

the Dagda stopped the sun once

for nine months

one way of hiding your guilt

and if the child turned out bad

you could always blame his mother