Sing A Song Of Samhain, As Summer Goes Away…

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Clear light on a slick palm
as I mis-deal the day
Slip the night from a shaved pack
make a marked card play
Call twilight hours down
from a heaven home
high above the highest bidder
for the good Lord's throne
In the wee hours I'll meet you
down by Dun Ringill ---
oh, and we'll watch the old gods play
by Dun Ringill
We'll wait in stone circles
`til the force comes through ---
lines joint in faint discord
and the stormwatch brews
a concert of kings
as the white sea snaps
at the heels of a soft prayer
whispered
In the wee hours I'll meet you
down by Dun Ringill ---
oh, and I'll take you quickly
by Dun Ringill

- Dun Ringill, Jethro Tull

 

Comes the winter’s touch, its breath felt but slightly on the nape, we bid wistful goodbye to summer and spring, and watch the leaves tumble brownly to the earth.

Of all the seasons, amid tumescent spring and burning summer and icy winter, of the four, autumn is the one that feels quite nearly mystical: the fog creeps in stealthily, cloaking the trees that shed their burden of growth from sunnier days, the breath becomes ever so slightly visible, the cycle swirls from vibrant life to a slow crawl towards the deep stillness of death. It is no wonder that our forbears attempted to fit the world to their structures, the seasons to the human condition. The fog-hidden trees seem to whisper of mystery, punctuated with the call of some bird that sounds eerily human. The sky grows darker, as if it were an eye slowly, slowly closing. Shed leaves whirl in the cold winds, almost promising to write some written message, but never quite. Grey branches seem to become the gnarled fingers of sun-frozen trolls, pointing somewhere that’s lost to the eye.

Time to thresh the wheat, to store it against the inexorable creeping of old man winter, to huddle by the fire in the hearth, and spin a tale or two, because winters are long and time stretches tautly, and the mind cries for diversion.

Oh, and the tales that are told! Of souls and saints, Valkyries and Valhallas, bonfires and Banshees, witches and Walpurgisnacht, the human imagination is a wondrous thing indeed.

On the proviso, of course, that one can distinguish between the tale told and the real world.

Have a safe and secular Samhain, my friends.

Till the next post, then.