Bardic Offerings G-H
Ghosts of a lost
forest.
The history of Britain is the history of trees.
Vast, luscious, deep forest, ruined over centuries,
Cleared for timber, settlement, and agriculture.
Leaving only the pollen from vanished woods,
To hint at splendours lost, landscapes changed.
Pollen speaks subtly of trees long departed,
But says nothing of their growing, their height,
What shape they took. Paints no picture,
Tells too thin and vague a story.
Excavated wood holds a magical potential,
Giving voice to trees once silenced and destroyed,
Slaughtered by the woodsman’s axe.
Revealing images of times passed, grandeur despoiled,
Of things we might have lost forever.
So much to study, boats and barrels, tree-rings,
Glimpses of lost forests, myths, ghosts and dreams.
Old human remnants, dug from the earth
Tell of slow domestication, taming the wild-wood,
Natural forest cover, grown up since the ice age.
Transformed to managed woodland, open farm.
The march of progress, a tale of pillage,
Defiled greenwood, plundered and abused.
Analysing a timber you might reconstruct
The shape of log from which it was hewn,
And from that log imagine the tree reborn.
Read in the pattern or straightness of grain
The shape of a tree cut in lost ages.
True wild wood, extinct so long ago,
Home once to bears, wolves, wild swine, wild cattle,
All long vanished into legend, deprived of habitat.
Ghost forest, alive only in the dreams of learned men,
A lost treasure, whole groups of wind-blown trees,
Still submerged in waterlogged, prehistoric peats.
Mix of oak, yew, alder and ash,
We will not see your like again.
Bryn
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Goddess
Divine
A Goddess surfed across the sky.
Her chariot spun from water vapour.
Her tall, majestic silhouette,
Looked tall and proud and graceful.
As I watched she changed her outline,
Became a poised and showy equine.
And just to show diversity,
She then became a harp.
Sweet music filled this heart of mine.
Thanks for sharing…
Goddess divine.
Dryac
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Goddess in a woman
Truly there's a goddess
in a woman I know
Inspiration comes to me
when I think of her
Truly she's there for me
in my dark day of despair
she comes and she holds me
in a dream
Surely she must be
more than just a human shell
a picture of perfection
higher soul
She keeps me in the hope
that I seem to lose sometimes
she's my goddess and a woman
my all Mark Ayling Go to Title Index
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Her
Name is Death
Her landscape lies spread beneath the crags,
Where She sits memoried, brooding;
She sails out on broad dust wings now and then to look it over.
Her memories of when many Centuries ago,
She was summoned to a far off land,
For what?
To take what is rightfully hers;
Never has She had such a feast,
And never again shall She ‘till Doomsday,
Until then ,
She shall prey on what She can.
Her Eyes rove across her domain,
Searching:
Sometimes seeing,
Ever ready for what is by inheritance hers.
She see below her a victim and feels her presence summoned;
Her wings are spread,
She swoops,
And all that is left of a person is a crumbling husk.
She does not return to her perch high in her domain,
But heads forward into the night,
And soon alights on a house where there is much sorrow and wailing,
There She sits and waits,
And waits,
For what is rightfully hers,
Her name has been a weapon of fear and mercy,
As,
She is one who has waited and will always wait,
And pity her victim,
For her name is DEATH
Dane
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Hebridean
Prayer
I sit where I sat once at a road’s edge,
under a green rowan, cowled in rain.
The tree wears bracelets of water,
my wrists bear bracelets of dew.
Crows tangle in grey sky bruised with light.
A cloud breathes the hillside through its long gill of rain.
Sacred island…you have seen the bracken in flood,
Known tears, and time; here all is flow.
Heather, marsh-water and mud, things real
dissolve translucently, observe.
Empty, empty, cries the curlew,
looping its call around tussocks of light.
Cold roots in light, seeks seeds of stone.
A play of sun on things begot of bone,
light and emptiness, alone with the Alone.
O holy rain, strip
me bare.
Make me nowhere.
Wind which grinds heather,
pluck my teeth,
pare bones and hair.
Make me air.
Fern and falling hawk,
my self discern,
in darkness and dearth.
Make of me earth.
Bloodwater midges,
dark-mirrored pool,
drain me dry.
Take from me this I.
Mark Williams
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Hobo
This was written after a very interesting
and eventful summer spent in the company of a travelling healer in Devon and
Cornwall in1965.
Jack, you old hobo, you walk the streets,
With ragged shoes on tired feet.
Your pack looks heavy;
But your heart seems light,
Do you worry where you will sleep tonight?
Sat in a Café drinking black coffee,
How do you manage to sustain your body?
The yobs laugh and jeer,
They think you’re a sight,
But you’re wiser than they and your eyes so bright.
Healer, you tread the roads by choice,
In the heat of summer and winters ice.
For you there’s no hurry
You can stop, look and see;
All the beauty of Nature, everywhere, free.
Man is a cruel and lonely thing,
Old hippy, you’re wise not to be like him.
You walk the world, free.
Traipse far and wide,
With the strength of the earth as your staff and guide.
Gwyn Thomas Go to Title Index
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Hope
Suffocating, choking, sweating
Slowly I’m being consumed
For too many years I have cried
Green turning brown turning grey
Surrounded by a poisonous mist of
destruction, construction and greed
My energy dwindling
My very heart mined
My stomach bloated with waste
My body aches and grows weak
I speak for the silent voices
For without me there is no life
I am life
I am the only one
How long before I join my empty
and devoid brothers and sisters
For I can not hold on much longer
My guardians can hear my suffering
my torture, my soul crying out
For with them there is hope of survival
So listen and hear my prayers
For with you lies hope
John Beeney
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Hymn
to Clutha
Chorus:
Clyde, Cliota, Clutha, Clywd,
These are the names you are known as.
Waters of Glasgow flowing through us,
These are the ways you have shown us.
Fertile Clutha, ebbing, flowing
Giving to us your riches.
Fierce and protective warrior Spirit
Help us to know your features.
Chorus
Sacred isles adorn your waters,
Places of inspiration.
Mother and Sister, Healer, Priestess
Show us the path to wisdom.
Chorus
Cleansing and healing are your waters,
Bringing your peace within us.
Mighty Clutha, young and ancient,
Send out your dreams among us.
Chorus
Potia.
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