Tag: Maponos

Black poplars who do you grieve?

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We have not the myth of a son
of the sun who got burnt
by the sun and fell.

When Maponos
stole the horses of Bel
and rode skywards to the horror
of His mother He did not come to grief.

Although Maponos burned He was not burnt.

He returned instead alive and ablaze,
replenished, youth renewed,
as the Sun-Child.

So, why, black poplars, do You grieve?

Do You grieve because Your brother lives?
Do You grieve because You are jealous?
Do You grieve because You got no grief?

Or is there a story of another brother?

A forgotten son of Matrona,
daughter of the King of Annwn,
who mounted a black horse and rode
after the black sun when it set and sunk
to the depths of the Underworld?

Did He drown in a black lake?
Was He eaten by a black dragon?
Or does He still wander lost in sorrow
through a labyrinth unillumined
by the rays of the black sun?

Poor brothers, did You search 
for Him and almost lose yourselves?
Did You get trapped in a dark prison
and scrape Your bloody fingers
against the walls and weep?

If so, how did You get here?

Did You ride with the black sun
or with the King of Annwn on the back
of His black horse who carries lost souls?

Did He plant You here, He and His Queen,
with labyrinthine roots winding down?

Did He seal Your tears deep within?

Did He kiss Your fingers like His Bride’s,
tuck them into a yellow bud
to emerge again
only in the spring to reach
not for the black sun but the love of a mate?

Did He bring You here to tell me when
I grieve my fingers are not talons
to scrape the walls
and my tears are not sap
to entrap the insects who get in their way?

Did He bring You here so I could learn
from Your clawing, Your crying,
my clawing, my weeping,
to turn my grief inward in winter
and then, in spring, to reach out in love?


*This poem is addressed to the two black poplars who stand at the source of Fish House Brook, near to the Sanctuary of Vindos, in my hometown of Penwortham. The photograph is of one of the fallen catkins, taken in spring 2022, not quite emerged.

The Mother of the Son

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Spoke the Prophet with the Dragon’s Tongue,
The Voice of the Goddess with Nine Dragon Heads:
“The Dragon Goddess shall be slain and in Human Form
She shall be reborn as the Mother of the Son.

In His darkest dreams the King of Annwn will tear
Out the Eye of Bel, He will tear down the Sun and put it
Inside the Belly of His Dead Mother and the Queen of Annwn
Will shape for Her Dead Mother a new Earthen Form

And They will send Her in a boat to Portus Setantiorium
Where She will be met on the Western Shore with Reedlights
And up the River of Belisama will sail to Ribel-Castre
And there the Eye of Bel will once again be reborn

As Maponos ‘the Son’ to Matrona ‘the Mother’.
Yes! Throughout Belisama’s Vale in the Sacred Groves
At the Springs and Wells and the Roaring Fords at the Roman
Altars and in the Temples They shall be Honoured.

At the birth of every child She shall appear Threefold
To Breathe the Blessings of the Awen into the Infant Mouth.
As the Three Mothers of Destiny She shall be Revered
In all the Holy Places in the Hills and Vales of the Old North.

And she shall appear Ninefold the Dragon Daughter
Of the King of Annwn as Morgana and her Sisters breathing
Life into His Cauldron before spiralling into Serpent Forms.
And the Nine shall be Recoiled in Circles of Stone.

And when the Priests of Christendom come armed
With Book and Vestment and Mitre treading widdershins
Around our Holy Wells with splashings of Unholy Water
But failing with their Prayers to undo our Spells.

Henceforth she will be known as Mary in Nine Churches
In Belisama’s Vale: at Peneverdant, at Prestatun, at Wahltun,
At Euxtun, at Leyeland, at Sceamlburgh, at Bamber Brig,
At Ruhford, at Fernihough, she will be Honoured.

At Cockersand Abbey as Mary of the Marsh
As the Magdalen in Maudlands in Nine Times Nine Churches
Across the Islands of Prydain and beyond she will be Honoured,”
Spoke the Prophet with the Dragon’s Tongue.

This poem was written as an early experiment in writing in the voice of ‘The Prophet with the Dragon’s Tongue’ in a Blakean style and brings together some of the mythic overlayerings of mother figures I have perceived within my landscape, in the Brythonic myths, and in visions and journeys.

I recognise this will not accord with everybody else’s perception of these deities and is very much a personal revelation. And, of course, I won’t be attempting to imitate Blake again, which I knew before setting out is impossible and foolhardy. I see it as a first step on the way to creating a myth to live by.