Winter Solstice 2022

‘Gwyn ap Nudd, helper of hosts,
armies fall before the hooves of your horse
as swiftly as cut reeds to the ground.’
  ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’

Three years have passed
since the last time I celebrated
the winter solstice here – the reeds still stand
as do the standing stones and the tradition
of dancing down the sun.

Who or what has fallen since the beginning of the disease?

More than armies, 181,000 deaths to this day.

The reeds still stand but something
was cut down within me when I cleared other reed beds
in the name of good service, knowing they would grow again, strove
to become a good custodian of the Water Country but was not accepted.

I fell and got trampled beneath the huge round hooves of Your horse.

I’m not dead yet, I picked myself up, got back on my bicycle

but appeared a stranger at the Pagan gathering
in my hi-vis jacket with my cycle helmet

needing to leave before it got dark

and chasing the sun west to the place I call home.

Here I attend the work of putting the cut reeds together again
reciting not the names of long dead warriors
Gwenddolau, Gwallog, Llachau…

but making a new bed

for the lost and weary souls
who half-died and want to grow tall.

The reeds say that we will grow again no matter
how hard we are trampled by the hooves of horses to the ground.