simonhlilly

ECLIPSE CYCLE

Soot black is the smith of sullen silence.
That shadow sitting always beside oblivious brightness.
Both watch the long hours –
Time fermenting with horizon’s rim,
Belly of the mother instinct hatching another triplicity.
Old gods making new gods.
An eternal chase, the subject becoming object,
The percept, concept.
Mind mazing itself ( as it does),
Its own lurking, horned monster.
This dance is neurological, biological, botanic,
A mitosis, a meiosis, a synthesis, a metabolism, an eclipse.
A hungry chasing wolf devouring light.
Crouched by the fire, our faces warmed,
Our backs chilled by starlight.
To make sense of this short story,
A fading posy of reasons,
A crushed sweetness of bedstraw.
The bards will sing and for a moment
We shall remember and forget
Everything that is and is not ours.
Visit the gods and get drunk with them.
Wordless, understand everything
Before the light of dawn
Spreads a bleak cold.

—

In most ancient cosmological myths the importance of the relationship between sun and moon and their meeting at eclipses are central to the understanding of how things are. To understand the world it is necessary to understand the dance of the powers moving above it. The tale of Ceridwen, Gwion Bach and Afagddu is a triplicity that might, at some levels of interpretation, be an exploration of the all important eclipse cycle, as well as the workings of the bardic process and the structure of human consciousness.