She came to test me.*

Did her hair flow bright as honey down her back? 

Was the wild rose the blossoming of her cheeks? 

Or, was her face was a web of soil-filled furrows?  

Were her eyes flinty with the cunning of age?  

  

I passed the test of kingship, I did not falter; 

She came old into my eyes, but was young in my arms, 

With fingers flowing gently over my temples,  

Breath sweet in the full bloom of her mouth, 

Voice rich as the blackbird’s on the highest branch of an oak.  

For a king must be one with the spirit of the land 

whether it be dressed in the bare, haggard bones of January,  

or the lush green coat bejewelled in May. 

*The high kings of Ireland had to lie with (or marry) the Hag to show that they were beyond being seduced 

by the easy things in life.

Goddess of Winter, Cailleach

I am weave,

flows bare bones of the land,

roots blood my stealth;

streams mountain hair,

hillsides’ ruminations,

meadow fantasies;

bleaches sunlight,

sugars earth,

rips the seas’ tides;

calls clockwork from branches,

buries bones in soil, drags days behind,

stirs the year.

The Cailleach

Clay in her mouth,

clothed in darkness, caged in stone.

She speaks in

the crumbling of mountains,

creeping of oceans across continents.

She pauses;

earthworms devour boulders.

(from Above Ground Below Ground)