To Crom Dubh, the Black Bull
Stand.
Deliver pride to kind deadly hands,
deft fingers stark on nightshade sleeves,
darting blade’s divisions, dagger’s quick work
August breadman stab-slashed, dismembered,
each piece hurled past forest trees…
hissing screams rip through leaves.
Ard Righ Aran, High King Bread, arcs
down, down to Crooked One’s door.
This day arrives for all of us who must rise,
obey patient ancient Crom Dubh,
Dank Monarch of Mold, Rank Ruler of Rot.
Think not to escape King Bread’s flight or fate.
At most we might delay that reckoning,
postpone by puny instants our meet ending,
to shriek past height of broad arcing flight,
not so much bread as bred to end
as hunks of reeking meat, eh?
Yes, taut swell of breast sweetly sags.
Yes, fire of lover’s loins barely an ember.
Yes, hearth flames rise in old souls’ eyes
as they remember what they must recall.
Choose for your funeral shawl or veil
weavings exquisitely delicate to give
breeze passage as well as time, with vision.
Never forget your part of hard bargains made before your birth.
Never fear the berth of sleep within your sacrificial well.
Never count the cost of deeply living, loving, lost.
Ruler of Depths knows those in high places;
Shining Ones yet yield to more ancient king his due.
Crom Dubh traces paths within paths walked by gods
throughout all lives, throughout all Ages,
waiting for us to wake and walk at last when rage is done.
Brighid, straddling threshold and more, stood mighty,
delivered, as we must if we would pass
through old lives to new, keeping trust
with the bargain that gives us true passage; so
hands, deadly kind, to pride deliver.
Stand.
~ Wry Welwood
25th of August, 2002
re-edited 14th of June, 2021
From Wry’s Druid period, when he referred to himself as a tradition-based Celtic Reinventionist (his fellow worshippers preferred the term “reconstructionist”). Note stanzas of 6-3-5-3-5–3–5–3–6 lines, totaling 39 lines. Heavy use of alliteration and internal rhyme, with reversal of initial lines for ending lines. New form called the Crom Dubh (Crahm doo) form.
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