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2nd May: Flow of Time

1
Finger of light
Twitches the curtains
Warm cat purs

2
Floating free
It takes a deep breath
Rising sun

3
Without doing,
Everything changes.
Time’s river

4
One or two moments.
Sunrise.
Fast river Time.

5
Watching.
Where is the small leaf of hope
I floated on that river?

6
Stay busy
So as not to notice
The speed of time.

7
No need to watch.
Sheep grazing
Feel the sun rise.

8
Catching breath.
No time to waste
Already gone

9
Accumulating merit
Then letting it go
Doing this, doing that

10
Morning sun
Now too bright.
Turning my gaze:
Waning moon

11
Sun and moon
Floating along
River of time

12
Where are they now?
All those plans floating.
River of time.

13
Caught sight of
One last time:
Small blossom.
Bend of the river

14
Somehow the same:
This thought
This river

15
One moment
Vanishes.
Recorded forever,
Perhaps

16
Deciding
Whether to go up the lane
Or down the lane.
Cat sitting in the sun.

17
To see all the pattern,
Break the pot.
Now the pattern,
Where is the pot?

18
Tune of an ancient chant.
Searching the words
That fit

19
Recording
Ordinary moments
In case
They never happen
Again

20
Thoughts, silence.
The sound of sheep
Munching new grass.

21
Slowly moving uphill
Into sunlight
Sheep nonchalantly drifting by

22
Choosing one,
All the others scatter:
Philosophical thoughts.

23
Should they never come again.
Collecting moments.
Mind fuel.

24
Fishing for words
The hours flow by.
But look what I have caught!

25
Small bright things:
Minnow moments.
I will return them to the stream
In just a moment

26
Haiku:
Not just words
Ripple outwards.

***

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print of ‘Light of Beltane’ created from tree and other plant spirit symbols
*****

THE COOL GREEN FIRES OF BELTANE

These wild mad-eyed men
Fire burning souls, heart-clawed:
Let them cool and rest
Under the dapple of trees,
Let them silent learn to smile,
Let them melt a little
Considering this fragrant air
sufficient, replete.
Breeze-filled, bird-filled,
A hammock for goodness.

Let them drop their hunger,
The carving of empires,
The bitter profits of belief,
The fierce ambitions for more.

Let them love their sons and daughters
And let them remember the open woods.
Let them not fear heaven nor hells
But let them halt and watch
The small things gather, delighted,
Learning the blessing of trees.

Let the heart melt in May,
Let the skin warm, flesh relax, soul unfurl.
For there is a glory to find beneath all things
And it shall shine through
Enough for any,
Enough for all.
Life under trees.

Let the mountains remain open
Let the valleys be all in green shade
Comforted, rocked, whispered.
For there are sufficient deserts,
Howling emptinesses we need no more of,
No more cleansings nor clearings
Nor impositions of sterile order.

Let the heart melt into May,
The cool green fires of Beltane.
Let the soul, with the souls of all, unfurl,
The branching year blossoming.

Beyond is the cool airs turning warm,
Beyond is a place to rest completed,
Beyond is the dream of violet shimmer
The hum of summer, the nest of light.
Under trees, cooled, dappled, blessed.

*****

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ST. GEORGE’S DAY ( April 23) (dream stream)

Emblazoned,
A green field.
Light rampant,
Golden-haired,
Erect.

Last night’s stars, last night’s meteors, showers of light as we plummet dark towards the spin of centre, the galactic hum.

Last night’s shooting stars
see them scattered sparkling
on the green grass of morning.

St. George’s Day bright with a sword edge in the wind. Little lambs sleeping warm in the sun. Guardian’s day, the land’s day. We who are, who are we, a part and portion, a flock hovering, gliding down to feed. Our field, bordered and named, bred of us, born and bearing us, dirt and soil grasped, the smell of it, the smell of bone and memory, the deepest smell. The redolent sound reverberates from in to out. Sound beyond, sound within. Nothing that does not vibrate and sing hymns to itself and its innocent exuberant expansion.

Awoken with sounds taking form,
star whispers filling echoing corners.
Placing sounds and syllables.
Taking time and running it
still to watch.

Lanced, vanquished, absorbed, armour to armour, name to name, sound to sound, the neigh of horse, jingle of rein, rasp of scaled iron claw on rock, hiss of expelled flame. The conflict of vowel and consonent. Pinned, wings upraised, the word is formed, dragon-mind gives up and yields to sword-tongue, shield palette. They are not two nor many, those actions, these seconds, these words. They are the stretched thin ever-now, the elongated serpentine, elementally configured, evolution of instance.
He rears up, he severs skin, subdues, subjugates, becomes monster. Not two but one. Bound together as icon, sound and form. Primal hunter hunted, eater eaten, seer seen. Send out from each eye a spear of mind, ineluctably, inevitably hooked, united, absorbed, absolved of difference, a flow of electrons. Eye to eye, saint and demon, exchange sky and earth, fire and tears. One, redundant without the other. Standing waves, crest and trough, a rippled ecstatic hum, white noise of endlessness, gong of falling away.

I shall sink into sound now,
sink into sound, name the names,
place the branched syllables,
string myself naked for nine days,
sacrifice, sacred act,
forget and recall the way the tongue
touches tooth exploding instruction,
an exhalation of daylight,
sparks, stars, a spittle of,
a shaft of,
a spear of.

Purring back and becoming the wriggle of the living heart, forged and cast, caparisoned in echoes. Sound shelled within sound. An eggshell heaven tumbling with birdsong. It savours the roundness of the day. Exhales cloud, tumbling, scudding. A roar that might be sea, might be forest, might be time itself, enfolding shield, vanquished and glorious, golden and slain in the morning.
The giant from whom the world is formed. The jester has slain the king. He takes a golden bow, winks, farts and dissappears. High minded flatulence of patriotism, set to against demons and heretics, the giants of the wilderness. The old names abide, whispered.

A little right
and a wealth of wrong.
To image is to fix.
To fix is to miss the point.
The heart of itself is severed and expires.

A parable of all things, as well as a description, as well as a poem, as well as a mimicked riddle. High on his horse, self-appointed and righteous, the knight rides out to do good. He will go native before nightfall. Seduced by the rainbow sinews of maidens. Then we shall see pierced flanks in the spring, hilltops yearning for a splice of passionate light. We shall see a might entering in and an entering out, a trouncing, a gasping pant of travail. It shall scatter the roosts, it shall raise the heads of deer in the trees. A mighty union there shall be. No battle but a dance, a molecular dance, strings knotted, syllables severed from dictated meaning, wrapped only into its own involution.

Saint and dragon lover,
each echoing sighs,
the fire of tangled nerve
shooting out to the horizon’s edge.
A green shield lies the field.
A sparrowhawk hesitates,
turns and dives.
Silence inside silence.
Sound itself,
a swallow in new skies,
expanding.

****

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(the images are from a series of sketches I have been making to turn into silver pendants. Dragon energies are a fascinatingly robust archetype of earth/solar/cosmic sentience and as such are a fertlie ground for internal explorations in matters of consciousness and deep ecology)

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1
The underside of heaven
A grey rolling, folded softness
Pushed gently, refiguring the light.

Messenger birds slide between worlds.

Settled and slow, layered in shells of skin,
Webbed, skeined, we solidify, objectify,
Await outcomes, anchor the ineffable.

2
Soon, and suddenly, there shall be green leaves.
A day or two of sun, a change of wind.
This pale stretched time will melt.
Hatched and brilliant will be the morning sun.
We shall remember what we have forgotten
And forget the simplicity of folded light.
Birdsong, bright edge and shadow;
The scent of hyacinths, the scent of mown grasses;
The roar of beauty as time flickers.
A brimstone butterfly in golden morning.

3
These words: a map back to my soul
Perhaps for another to discover
Where cold ashes still mark the place
I could not remain.

These words: a map back through dream to memory,
A resuscitation of hours and senses.
What is lost, gathered again –
A tide scouring, reforming the sands,
Never to be the same, though not so much changed.
The roar of time as beauty flickers.

4
Rain-wet morning
Cool on my brow
The blessing of doves

The blessing of doves
Soft chanting from treetops
Grey, heavy clouds

Grey, heavy clouds,
What is there missing?
Only the voice of the cuckoo.

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7
VOTADINI

Sun, becoming burnished, cherry red,
Rolls up that hill,
A golden road to golden day.

This is our land, none better
For our long days,
As days stretch and darkness glistens.
A rich land for rich hearts.

We rise upon our high, green seats,
Our green thrones, rise towards the sky,
Lifting the land, a cloak, a wing, a song.

This vast curve of life:
A shield against all dismay,
A pool, heaven reflecting.

Islands arise from the morning,
Hearth fires radiate into the dusk.
This is our birth,
Rolling up the glorious hills.

*

I forgot about this one that I scribbled down a few days ago as dawn came up.
The Votadini were a tribe inhabiting South East Scotland up to the Firth of Forth, present day Borders and Lothian regions.
Their territory is characterised by big hilltop enclosures with large walls and banks ,(examples are Eildon Seat, Yeavering Bell and Trepain Law in East Lothian, which was probably their primary seat until it moved to Dun Eidyn (Edinburgh) in the 5th century).
The name probably means ‘fort dwellers’, though has also been interpreted as ‘those of the wide places’. Their name becomes transformed into the Early Medieval British kingdom/confederacy Gododdin ( ‘w’ sounds change to ‘gu’ in many Celtic tongues), well-known for the Welsh/British poem that records the disastrous defeat they suffered at the Battle of Catterick.

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6
BRIGANTES

Soaring over whin and wild barley,
Watched and watching,
The eagle, cloud-friended, glorious.
The small ones, still, bright eyed,
Amongst the grey rock, stoat and hare.
The grey rock, the grey rock,
Still they stand, scribed and measured,
Sky-loved.
A dancing floor, a gaming board,
Dyed bright as day, mist-cloaked, wild.
We claim the heights,
For they are hers.
The Highest, folded, pleated,
A plaid of keeping.
Bright, uttermost, tower of light,
Our home, our name.

We hear the voices from the deep dwellings.
The liquid tumble falls towards the dark centre,
Scouring the grey smooth, a constant choir
Feeding the stone, feeding the soil.
From the heights we descend
And return spiralling, victorious.
Radiant cloud, rainbow mist, sharpened rain,
A slingshot of ice, a glance of gold.
Exultant, we look down, we look down,
We who dwell within the Highest,
Look down, reach down, sweep up.
Clasped firm, swinging, sky-borne.

****

The Brigantes were a powerful confederation of peoples across the North of England, specifically focused on the high lands of the Pennines, the central limestone lands that run down the centre of the country as far south as Derbyshire. The name means ‘high ones’, ‘upland peoples’, ‘people of the High One’. Brigantia is the name of a deity, translating as ‘Highest One’ or ‘Highest Goddess’. Limestone country is characterised by exposed platforms of rock, water-eroded into ‘pavements’, and deep sinkholes that open into complexes of water-carved caverns.

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**

A flood of gold
Danaë sighs
Morning sun.

**

Owl call
Answered.
A single star
Glimmering.

**

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Finally, I have got round to putting “The House of Trees” into format for e-publishing on Smashwords. Please go and have a look. You can download the first 20% for free, and the whole darn thing is only $2.99 in whatever format you would like.

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http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Simonhlilly
Book page to sample or purchase The House of Trees: http://smashwords.com/b/302318

Here is the foreword to that book:

“FOREWORD

This long poem was composed in the late autumn of 2012 and through that winter into January 2013. It was conceived on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, during a short visit there. The main themes emerged from elements within that spectacular landscape, and became woven together into an exploration of the nature of freedom. At this time Scotland was again considering whether it would be better off as an independent nation, planning for a referendum in 1214. The history of Scotland, as with most small countries, is full of external pressures and influences. The yearning for freedom is palpable, as much as its strong sense of identity, but seems to be tightly knotted together with nostalgia, pain, suffering, the past and the mythic presence of its Celtic inheritance. My heart opens and relaxes whenever I return to Scotland. Although I was not born there, (and my traceable ancestry is largely rural English and Welsh), I lived and studied in Edinburgh for six years during the 1970’s and 80s, and always look forward to breathing its air again.
Everything we know, every place we cherish, is mythologised and overlain by countless personal coincidences. Significance and resonance colours all our perceptions and memories, often without our conscious knowledge. Poetry is maybe the most precise and accurate means to explore and record these deeper tides of the mind. When we make judgments, when we are asked to decide, it is not the rational mind that pulls the strings. That sensible voice of justification is merely the storyteller that weaves more stubbornly held beliefs and preconceptions into a political statement of policy. The past is not just a record of events. The past maintains itself and evolves through the present. The present, it might be said, is merely the visible tip of the submerged iceberg that is the past. It is in the same way that, amongst traditional cultures, the visible world is conceived as being a reflection, or an elaborate set of clues, to an underlying and much more powerful realm of spiritual beings.
“The House of Trees” is a weaving of these levels of mind: my mind, the mind of the land, the mind of its peoples and the powerful dreams that haunt every pool and rock. The outer always mirrors the inner. To attempt to differentiate the subjective from the objective may be thought by some as the noblest goal of science, a compassionate climb out of foggy ignorance into the clarity of certain knowledge. Indeed, the failure to make the distinction between inner (imagined constructs) and outer (perceived objects) is regarded by some as a sure sign of mental illness in this civilised world. The paradox, the mighty joke, is that both in our most detailed examination of the nature of matter and in our more hesitant exploration of the functioning of the mind the deeper we delve, the less substance we can find. Certainty evaporates like an ice cube in the sun. Each horizon is a dream illusion can never be attained. We yearn, reach for and remember stories that placate or vindicate us, that tell us how we got to where we are, that tell us the roads by which we can go on a little farther.
Simon Hughes Lilly
Exminster, Devon, England. Spring 2013″

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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.

***

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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THE GIVING OF NAMES ( continued, part three)

5
CANTIACI

We are the people of the corner lands
The ones dwelling at the edge,
Catching the first of the sun.
Rippling out into the waters
The ribbon ocean wrapped.
White walls our fortresses.
White walls and long pebble walls,
Walls of rock, walls of water.
First home is our home,
First land is our land,
Nooked, swathed, sun-warmed
Honeyed. A hum of bees
In the woodland,
A hum of birds at roost.
Harboured, wave-rocked,
Sea-light our hair, sea-bright
Our faces. Wind-cradled.
The gulls on the tide,
The rushes hiss rippled light.
The forests silent now,
The deer move out to graze
In twilight. Our moon scythe,
Grains of stars, ripe, fall
To our winnowing.

6
CORNOVII

The horned ones
Gather together.
The delicate, fierce ones
Tree-headed, call
Into the dawn air.
A clash of antler,
A clash of bone on bone,
The learned dance, the wild dance.
Sap-sweet, Spring’s blood
As it rises. An arc of lust,
A braying horn, a mighty host.
Dappled, we move in silence.
One by one from shade to sunlit pool,
Grazing, given grace, guardians
Of the deep wood. Stepping light,
A crown upon us, a host of spears,
Scattered glory of light,
We emerge, we disappear,
Inviolable.

( the Cantiaci give their name to the county of Kent, in the SE of England. The name means ” peoples of the corner land”. The Cornovii occupied the middle west of England, towards what is now the borders of Wales. They are one of many tribal peoples who name derives from something along the lines of “the horned ones” or “people of the horned one”. In Staffordshire the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is still performed, where the dancers wear caps attached with sets of deer antlers.)

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