The Work: Summer Solstice, Avebury

Across the land this morn, a roll of light Gave birth to shadows, cast from chalky hills The larks ascended, sang away the night Vibrated sky to waking with their trills ‘Tis Summer; round the circle swirls the breeze As darkness yields unto the swell of day As every meadow hums with birds and bees And scent of elder steals the breath away This is the time, when earth craves heaven’s kiss All full of lust, all bursting in its bloom All lost in heady momentary bliss Before the fall, and crashing down to doom Now comes the wren, as if from nowhere blown Within its beak a lively twig of oak And suddenly, forth from a door of stone Springs sacred fire, and wild midsummer smoke And from within the smoke the King appears From black stream spilled, the son of mountain high With shield burnished bright by virgins’ tears And salamander flame within his eye Upon his head a crown of acorns sits He holds a horn of gold from faery lands Across his face a flick of fear flits He plants his feet on earth, and solid stands And She; blue butterflies around her head Bare breasted, barefoot, riding a white mare With piercing speedwell eyes to blind the dead And poppies red all woven in her hair She rides, in to the circle, on her horse Dismounts in silence, looks him in the face Above them both, the sun, stopped in its course For here is now, and only now, this place He touches her, he places sword to cup She speaks some ancient magic without sound Above their heads the heavens open up Bright waterfalls of light pour to the ground She touches him, and fossils shake from sleep Electric rivers rise with shock and force To flood the sky with fire from the deep All light in circuit, flowing back to source Just now, oh now, now come, now come; now gone All energy subsides, and colours dim They rise up from the ground they laid upon He steps away, and bows, and She to him A feather from a lark falls gracefully To land among the flowers where they sat He fades into the smoke, and so does She And so The Work is done, and that is that The wren returns, and sits upon a stone A holly berry glistens at its feet It sings a song through all the ages known A song of earthly bliss, and heaven sweet For all the Gods are one God, sang the wren All Goddesses one Goddess, ‘neath one Sun And we are one another, Gods, and men As God and Goddess, joined together; One © Gail Foster 2016