ecology – celtic singer

Oh the years
Taunting and capricious
As the wind,
I am young
Maid innocent
Beauty fresh,
Years stretching
Endlessly hopeful
Invincible,

Oh the years
Taunting and capricious
As the wind,
Eager wife
A husband joining
Consuming passion births,
Heart, belly, breasts
So full and nurturing
Matronly duties mine,

Oh the years
Taunting and capricious
As the wind,
A crone’s reflection
Haunts me
Gnarled hands wringing,
Squandered now
The maiden’s hope
The matron’s fecund gifts,

Oh the years
Taunting and capricious
As the wind,
Water, soil, air
Souls fouled by greed and malice
Reap a poisoned harvest,
A new day dawns
Its terrible beauty birthing
Storm, disease and fire,

Oh the years
Taunting and capricious
As the wind,
I watched my children
Long these years
Life so full and fleeting,
Roaming, building
Casting aside
To build anew,

Oh the years
Taunting and capricious
As the wind,
A savage maid
Matron, crone
Await,
My heart breaks
But hope remains
The future beauty holding.

© 2023 Maggie Grimes

I felt the need to revisit an earlier poem, a restatement of their voices. In ancient times we lived in harmony and balance with the natural world. We respected Nature and our place in it. We have forgotten these truths. MJG

I am young
Maid innocent
Beauty fresh,
Years stretching
Endlessly hopeful
Invincible,
Eager wife
A husband joining
Consuming passion births,
Heart, belly, breasts
So full and nurturing
Matronly duties mine,
A crone’s reflection
Haunts me
Gnarled hands wringing,

I watched my children
Long these years
Life so full and fleeting,
Roaming, building
Casting aside
To build anew,
A savage maid
Matron, crone
Await,
My heart breaks
But hope remains
The future beauty holds,
Oh the years
Taunting and capricious
As the wind.
© 2020 Maggie Grimes
I realize that the triadic goddesses of Irish mylthology don’t represent the stages of life, but rather mystical truths ruled over by different aspects of a triple goddess. I am a poet of Irish-Celtic ancestry and this is how I heard their words. In ancient times we lived in harmony and balance with the natural world. We respected Nature and our place in it. We have forgotten these truths and are now paying for our hubris. MJG

Oh my fathers, can you tell me why? Why my skies are gray and my rivers filth? Why the forests are passing memories found only in legend? Why, oh why did you murder the sea?

Oh my fathers, when you were young, the sun was a golden disk in a vibrant sky. The earth gave birth to wonders of joy. The sea was wild and filled with promises. Your night was warm with the dancing stars.

What blinding greed drove you to create the world you bequeathed me? It is lonely in this world of gray silences and death.

I wrote this many years ago when I first started teaching. I taught that all life is precious and interconnected. Conservation was the wise, sustainable use of limited resources. I hoped that my epitaphs for nature would help awaken in my students a sense of relationship to the world that is our only home. Burning rainforest, melting ice caps, dying reefs, we are running out of time. MJG

Category: ecology

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