The Ickney

We came to the Heath

Hand wrapped and numb

Beat,

Waiting through water for

The offering;

A pardon given for my ignorance,

Ours for the fire let only inside,

And waited in the Circle.

To the north a hearty salutation

No less the east, west and south,

A green air waiting with pulse

As hammers,

I had never felt to close my eyes,

The spoken void now seen to me,

All time waiting in the turn of a head,

The horse stepped out from the reign,

The dead present too like sentinel trees bowing silver silent in the half gloom,

My girl muttering the invocation in

A daze and there the horse rode our hearts towards the Circle.

Ten hands tall and bone, he looked at me, chose me to not choose,

And strode like a fighter from the dead ground we had opened.

Opened he was challenged, with virtues spoken,

beaten back to bless the year in defeat,

By green bough shining hopeful and the year to come growing

From our shaking feet.

~