I.
Following a pathway of foot-jewels to the capsized summit
II.
Leaving low lying lands whose gyres and waterfalls climb
III.
Entering the site of undecided cloud wars
IV.
My shadow touches the trig-point leaving my body’s mechanics behind
V.
Clouds volley my shadow into the valley
VI.
Ash trees shake snowfall down limestone’s spine
VII.
Crescent moon blinks a snow-smile and winks out until next time
Before my calling I slept in a glass coffin.
No-one knew if I was live or dead until
I raised my head. And still they are pondering.
Whilst I slept I watched processions
of black clad men carrying coffins,
who march here still putting time
to death, brief as dragonflies.
Their echo beats loud. In woodlands
at March I search for a heartbeat, whilst
mad winds whirl the winter skies overhead.
Roads steal sound. Pylons warp every sense.
Yet when I look the past in the eye it looks back.
They need us now as much as we need them
and the people of the future need us again.
For live or dead there is no rest, no place
to hide nor coffins left, only time processing
through both worlds to a fathomless end.
Fay bells chime. You ride a pale horse tonight.
My white mare pines for infinite horizons.
From this false security’s plastic peace
I breathe a prayer for ecstatic release.
Wrenched like tendons, reality is severed.
You open a snow storm, marvel and terror,
suburb stripped bare, hung trees and glittering ice,
a spectral host bathed in sweeping starlight.
Some people don’t see them. The rest run scared.
With my reckless steed I join the nightmare.
Our heart beats quicken to Annwn’s dread trance.
Street lamps flicker. Roofs slip into the distance.
Fairy lights and festive chants spread the county
from Blackpool Tower to Winter Hill, bright fountains
dissolve to torch parades. The present falters
revealing a past of village and bonfire,
chill chapped hands, hungry gatherings at cauldrons,
a labyrinth of padways mazed across Pilling
buried by snow fall, entombed beneath glaciers.
A cold unbearable sets in to kill.
And I fear I’m trapped in the Age of Ice
on the day of doom at the end of time
I cannot move my frozen mind. I scream
“Why? Winter King, bear me to these extremes?”
Your look commands; survey this fragile land,
ice crafting the mythos you toil to grasp,
reshaping the hills, renaming the towns,
creating the isle you know as Britain.
Wild laughter rings from the hollow landscape.
The fate of worlds tilts on a teetering brink.
I see your task, unruly guardian
of streaming vast ancestral tradition.
History rushes back and my course is clear,
My return to Penwortham swiftly steered,
shaking off snow, flexing my cold fingers,
I whisper thanks for your winter visions.
The Sanctuary of Vindos 