I sought some solace in Rhiannon’s birds
that I might come to life again
or be lulled into a gentle sleep from which
a new life might begin. So birds came:
A blue tit hopped in through the window
and flew back to the wild from a cupped hand;
the swallows in the garage had four chicks
which came and went through an open door;
A young heron stepped slowly along a streamlet
intent on prey – these birds moved through the world
to bring me back to it, taking me with them
as they flew into the light of the Sun.
Then at Full Moon I awoke long before dawn
to go out under stars bright in the Moon’s eclipse
which was not an eclipse because there, smoke-red
she was visible in the sky and yet not visible.
From this deep mystery I went back
to the otherworld of sleep, it seemed
that I still walked the path of the dead
and so another day passed, another night
when the the Moon was bright, so bright
that as I watched her rise I flew
like a bird through the world, and still
next morning she was there in the western sky,
A daylight Moon remaining big and round
before she faded as the Sun broke through
and a bright day grew and something of Summer
still wreathed itself through coming Autumn.
Soon the swallows will fly south for the Winter
and we’ll hang food for blue tits on the apple tree
which now bears fruit for a sweet harvest
as Rhiannon’s birds sing their song for me.
EPONA with fabulous beasts from a funeral stone in Gaul
The hospital bed had been a place of turmoil for much of the day. My mum was pulling at the leads in her arm and the plastic face mask feeding her oxygen. Her condition had worsened since my visit the previous day. She had been poorly but able talk and ask about my journey from Wales to Lincoln. But now she was distracted, the world and its pains becoming too much to bear. When I came back later that evening she seemed hardly to know me. The duty doctor took me aside and indicated that I could stay after visiting time as she was unlikely to last the night. So I sat by the bed, curtains drawn around us, the machine occasionally flashing red and beeping as I held her hand to be with her in her travails.
It began to seem that the tubes and machines were an intrusion into an inevitable process, no longer useful in keeping her alive but hindering her passing, obstacles to her journey out of this life. I know that one of her feeds was giving her pain relief, and she would have been worse without it, but she seemed to be fighting them off, wishing to be free of the encumberance of them. I wished her a better journey, to walk the paths out of this life more serenely.
I thought of a Gaulish funeral stone I had been looking at recently, showing Epona leading one of the dead through a host of fantastic animals, walking the paths of the dead as a guide. Could I help her find these paths? We could not talk now, although I said reassuring things not knowing if she even heard them. But she did respond to my hand holding hers and gripped it for support. So I held on and imagined her walking with Epona through those dark ways surrounded by strange sights, perhaps bewildered but yet knowing she was led on the right path, the way she had to go.
The lights in the ward went off for the night, with only the background night lights still on. Her breathing became less laboured, as her light too faded and she seemed to be calmer. Her breaths were slower, more spaced out and she seemed almost peaceful, as if the fight was over and she could relax. The gaps between breaths lengthened and I knew her time had come. One more breath, almost a sigh as her head turned slightly to one side. Still I held her hand. The lights on the machine changed, not flashing now and a different colour, a single line of them, static and still. She too was still. A nurse came and looked at the machine. I said, ‘I think she’s gone’ and she turned to feel for a pulse at the neck. She nodded and went away before returning with a doctor. He too nodded and asked if I needed anything, more concerned with the living than the dead.
I needed a moment more, so they left me holding on still to her hand as I wished her well on her journey with Epona, that she should be led safely through the paths of the dead. Only then did I let go of her hand and gave her a farewell kiss before leaving her there looking so peaceful now, though sad to leave this life behind. Then, after saying what had to be said to the staff on the ward, I walked out into the strangeness of the night.
The longest day, and we went
into the mountains to see it through.
The shallows of the river were dry
so we sat for the feast of Midsummer
on grey sand and shingle and only
the deeps of the river ran swiftly
in a narrow channel in the shade of leaves.
We lingered there till the day was spent.
It was open season and hunting weather
so we stalked flowers in grass and heather,
St John’s Wort had leaves with translucent dots
and petals edged with a beading of spots –
small suns of the mind to hallow the day
and keep from time his passing away.
*****
Gerard, in his Herball, describes St John’s Wort as having “many small and narrow leaves which if you behold betwixt your eyes and the light, do appear as it were bored or thrust through in an infinite number of places with pin points. The branches divide themselves into sundry small twigs, at the top whereof grow many yellow flowers, which with the leaves bruised do yield a reddish juice the colour of blood.”
A mare rides through the enchanted day, she is wildness,
uncanny, something out of twilight in the light of the Sun
enchanted, our eyes are turned away from the world we know
but as she turns to us, her turning is an embrace, a calmness
dissolves the vision of horse and a woman stands there.
We are undone by the sight of her and everything she is:
Evanescent Horse, Endless Summer, Shining Goddess.
greghill.cymru 