‘I will not eat the leaves of the trees.’
– The Life of St Collen

Saints do not know how to eat leaves.

How to boil them in Your cauldron
to make the sweetest meats,
the finest of poetry.

This is the art
of the awenydd,
of the nun of Annwn.

She knows where to gather them,
this first fall of green-browns,
ash, poplar, willow, before
the yellow-golds of lime, the reds,
oranges, crimsons of maples to come.

She knows how to stew them 
with apple and cinnamon,

how to cook for You
the most delicious feast.

A poem for Gwyn’s Feast which this year falls on the full moon and is a powerful time to be offering food and mead and poetry to the Blessed One.

This year I feasted Gwyn last night with the Monastery of Annwn. This proved fitting as when I went out before dawn this morning to pour the mead I left on His altar overnight at His apple tree in our garden I saw the full moon.