Hallucinatory

“Hallucinatory”, you say! Sky, earth,animal concentricly ringed.

Lives: stone, stone and river, river, human.

Hallucinatory: spirals, zigzags, chevrons, sunbursts!

Yes, I see the vortex you travelled through,

I see the serpentine trace of the Boyne,

Knowth, Dowth, Newgrange along its path;

the lozenged pattern of fields through which it flows;

the arced hills, chevron forests of trees.

Earlier, I saw the angular graph of human worries

side by side with the eternal turning of Gods’ backs;

the cardiograph pattern that reads mortality

next to the celestial manifestations that measure out lives.

I have seen the sundial that marshals the symbols into their system,

an assignation with mathematical precision;

I have seen them liquefied to become art,

much as Van Gogh painted the night sky.

(The Sundial Kerbstone at Knowth is a remarkable piece of work.  Is it the earth's oldest sundial? One way or the other, it puts many of the motifs in celtic art into a scientific framework. Google an image, if you're not familiar with it.)

Stone Art

 

 

 

 

                            Stone at Newgrange photo by Johnbod. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Johnbod.

 

 

A man is carving shapes:

spirals, lozenges, chevrons;

the sun is looking over his shoulder.

Below, in the valley, the Boyne passes

 with a glint from its teeth,

the whitethorn is in full bloom,

the daylight hours are long. 

 

His hands are leather from handling flint;

a wave traverses the stone,

arcs toss on the crests,

they tip left then right;

tonight the moon is tipping left;

in three weeks daytime will be at its longest.