The wood so softly singing
In a language strange to hear
And the song it sings will find you
As the twilight draws you near

20120430

MAY QUEEN


I went out to the wild places to see where the Spring had come, and where she was still biding her time in the closed bud's seclusion, and guarding warmth yet beneath the folded petals. The Earth was soft in the wooded cwm and I stood on a rock in the rushing stream while the waters flowed around me. To one side the bank was full of bright green leaves of wood-garlic, on the other the grey rock was piled high and clothed with a hundred shades of green and yellow from the many mosses that grow there - as beautiful and exotic a garden as one could wish for. Back on the bank I saw a single flower of wood-anemone showing bright yellow stamens in the white petals though the leaves were still unfolded. And yellow was the colour that speckled the green of the roadside verges, with coltsfoot in the gravelly place and daffodils by the garden paths and dandelion and celandine under the bare twigs on the hedges.

Now the day has come when the banks are brighted with as much yellow as there is green and primroses grace the woodland floor and the trees are a rustle of wind-blown leaves. So I watched for a while over the wood and my heart called out again to go to the place of trees: to see my lady there. Her green cowl about her brown hair, she walks through the grey woods. She treads a path of ragged leaves and petals open as she goes, yellow buds unfold on every green stem. She casts her green cloak over the brown land and the woods come alive to look upon her. Her dewy skin as soft as lady-fern leaves, and moist like a buttercup looks in the morning grass. The Wind sighs as her scent sails on the morning air.