simonhlilly

DOBUNNI

Darkness sinks into the earth.
The mountains rise up:
Horizons of light.
Our shadows leap
To the far distance,
The cauldron that is time,
The cauldron that is space.

It branches dark and branches golden:
The tree from which we spring.
Black ash, bird-filled, singing.

See in the deep valley floor,
The slow wide valley floor,
The light-reflecting rivers,
Sky echoes, draped across fields.

This is the deep cup: our land
Filling with a rich wine of light.
We drink and remember our distance,
Our road here, the long miles,
The union of footfalls, the meeting of strangers.
A land of meetings, a land of unions.
Dark and light
Rivers, waves, shadows.

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ICENI

The wide sky roars with white cloud stallions.
The wild, graceful horse whose name is wind.
The land lies folded, calm as a foal in sleep,
Mare’s milk full, it is gentle, replete.
Bird-bright is the morning,
Their song, the jingle of harness and rein,
Bronze, red, golden blue, the wheels upon us:
The sunlit world, green pasture, filling wheat.
We are the riders of the world, the horse people,
Proud-maned, stepping lightly.
Walking, running, galloping, moon-footed.
The golden horizon we place upon our necks,
Wound, wrapped, a promise of return,
A promise of returning.

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( The Dobunni were a confederation of peoples living between the Malvern Hills and the Cotswolds in the southern Midlands of England. Their name has been related to roots such as ‘dark’, ‘cauldron’, ‘black ash’, ‘people of two origins’, ‘people of the cauldron’, ‘people of the black ash’.

The Iceni were a powerful tribe occupying Norfolk. Their name can be translated as ‘people of the horse’. They are renowned for their working of gold torcs, large neck rings that signified the empowerment of the spirit and allegience to the deities of the land.)

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