May Day 2009

Wrote this at a Beltaine (Celtic May Day) celebration today. I've known a good number of the folks there since 1994 (if my calculations are correct - end of my junior year of high school I think but due to medical problems I had back then my memory is poor so may have been 1993). The first time I went to one of these, my mom and then-just-turning-5 brother were with me, and it really struck me that now my own firstborn is roughly the same age my brother was then. That is a major part of the inspiration for this poem. First draft, unedited, written aroung 5:30pm today.

Half a life ago
or maybe two
Under a sky
Almost blue
Clothed in time
And ribbon
We danced the
Summer in
Young without
And within
We help the
World begin again
Faces new and
habitual
Essential parts of
ritual
Bellies filled with
Divinity
Have waxed and waned
repeatedly
The earth dances
round the sun
Lives ending
and begun
We gather here
Rain and shine
To be blessed
and our selves divined
As long as
memory lasts
our futures
will adorn our past