Day Three: A month of poetry for Brighid

Visions of Otherworld

I

I tread the rough path ‘twixt two hillocks green.

The air is thick with mist which hangs in sheets

Obscuring vision of the road ahead.

The moisture saturates my every breath

And coats the grass and skin and cloth with dew.

My road leads to twin monoliths of stone

That flank the threshold of another land

Through which my path if e’er I follow leads.

Each menhir a rough pillar of grey rock

Bearing runic symbols of safe passage

Deep notched in channels on each carraig’s face.

Blind to beyond, but trusting in my road

That never once has yet misled my feet

I overstep the boundary of the rocks,

Whose man or elf-marked runes invite me hence,

And pass beyond the portal ‘tween the hills

Into what land as yet remains unseen.

Now is the fog from o’er my eyes removed

And with true vision look I on the land

That stretcheth out before my thoughtful feet.

Below the hillside whereupon I scan,

Behold! A field of gleaming grains of gold;

A flaxen swath of gilded wheat and rye!

Farther thence a sapphire rivulet

Cuts its trickle through that shining land.

Beyond, a forest most majestical

Rises in green pines and hazel trees,

Whose branches overreach the quiet stream,

And trunks the height of which do scratch the sky.

What lessons here be taught I do not know,

But I will walk this world of shining lights,

Of precious metal grains and gemstone leaves,

Of colors strong and trees of soaring heights,

And glean what secrets it presenteth me,

What truths unfathomable it will show.