Beltane 2013 - a reading (on YouTube)
The season starts with a slaughter, ripened lives plucked in
bunches like fresh strawberries until red runnels indelibly stain the hands of
the gods. His winged companions ambushed by forces of light and darkness,
mighty Oberon slouches upon his throne, lord of a silent kingdom. Tiny chimes
give voice to the restless air as belled and chained faeries sing for Beltane
to set them free.
A host of faeries disguised as dragonflies flit and flitter
among the clouds of insects that serenade the river flowing through glen.
Sunlight glints off their armor beneath tabards of lavender, pink and yellow
fluttering like an army of wildflowers celebrating the wind. Beneath a banner
bright as shamrock, they pluck harp strings spun from daffodils and beat a war
drum purple with a pair of thistle heads.
With crystal swords and pinfeather arrows, they prepare for
battle, arrayed against the storm of winter's final, desperate cold defense. As
pipers call a dancing tune, the army surges forward, a cacophony of color
sprouting in its wake as each rapier pinprick melts another foe. Horns of honey
wine and nectar overflow in victory as the ice queen retreats into a babbling
brook and the snow queen melts to May.
© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III
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ReplyDeleteNotes and asides:
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Once again, an aggregation of unused lines that seemed to form a story, at least in my mind.
Oberon is king of the faeries, perhaps best known from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Lord of a Silent Kingdom is the title of a Glen Cook novel. I just loved the turn of phrase.
The line about faeries disguised as dragonflies comes from looking out on the aptly named Fairy Glen in Wales in 2006. The light was a perfect yellow-green that seemed to make the glen glow as well as highlighting all the insects flitting along the stream.
Daffodils, shamrocks and thistles are the national flowers of Wales, Ireland and Scotland respectively.
Picture Notes:
ReplyDeleteThis sketch started as a drawing from a picture of a mushroom out in the front yard. It soon morphed into more. I used a picture of a woman in a long dress for the faerie, and added wings. Next came the light in her hand. The trick was to figure out how that light would reflect in a realistic way on the bottom side of the mushroom. There were lots of adjustments to the image while in progress. I hadn't intended to draw this for the Beltane message, but when it was finished it seemed to work perfectly. It was drawn in March on the iPad.