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Solar Poetry from the Hill of Uisnech

Paul Begadon, the author of The Layman’s Havamal, What Are You Selling?, and Unchaining The Titan, shared two solar poems with PH2T3R, written for a ceremony he attends at the Hill of Uisnech on the occasion of Bealtaine. You can read more of his work at www.woodkern.net.

1.
Then I heard that the sun
Had been plucked from the sky
By a giant
Of Fomóraigh stone.
But I laughed, said the sun’s
Not some frail firefly
To be bottled up,
Never to roam.
He’s the one in the chariot,
The tip of the spear,
The flash of a salmon
In flight.
He’s the Sun in our Sky
And he rolls where he will,
Though there’s some
Who implore him to hide.
Go hide from the light
If you fear being burned.
Leave us to burn fires
Of bones.
We’ll greet the bright sun
And we’ll heal when we’re hurt,
And the sun will roll on
Where He goes.

2.
Then the sun at his aging
Looked back on his life and said
“Many a dawn I have sped,
And o’er many a battle
My wheels have rolled on,
But my chariot’s knackered and beat.
So my horses rise late and
Go slow through the morn
To an evening that’s lengthy and red.”
Then the sun in his armchair
Rolled into a dream of his youth
When he blazed overhead,
And the humans below him
Danced naked and screamed
As he drove his wild horses and fled.
Then waking once more
In his autumn of life, he bethought
The short days he had left.
“Oh, my summer has gone
And I sink in the west
To a twilight of longing and rest.
Now a new sun must rise
To ride high in my car and
Drive my bronze horses again.”

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PH2T3R Creator and Primary Editor.
Author of The Way of Men, Becoming a Barbarian, A More Complete Beast, and Fire in the Dark.