Celtic Winter

!CELTIC WINTER: circa 850 A.D.

By JC STREET © 2004 all rights reserved


That winter was sharp with frost; deer lay
in the fallow places
their dark-blooded legs frozen from the snow
so deep was the drifting
at Enniscorthy

Rafters here groan-burst, snow
sunders them
a bleak wind comes into the straw where Aidne
lies with Brian

Dawn is small and young but
not without guile,
laughing with the warriors
chiding the drunken bard when he falls under the horses
nose breaking
blood bursting like snowflakes
from his nose

Dawn is the daughter of Brian, she
rides with Eamonn
picks plums with Padraig
in the golden time at harvest

not without guile

she laughs with the warriors,
chides the bard, but
when Eamonn wrestles with Padraig,
muscle here buckling like the cow under the bull, she
grows pensive

like the deer
at the watering place


(Kings Head pub, Little-Marlow-upon-Thames, Buckinghamshire, June 10, 1985)

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