Lughnasadh (+ poem)

Tonight, for the 24-hour period until midnight tomorrow, we will be celebrating the first harvest in for Lughnasadh, or Lammas (from 'hlafmass', or 'loafmass'). This is the time of Lugh the fire god; one of the Celtic cross-quarter dates of the wheel of the year, midway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox.

You can read more, and see a previous poem of mine, on this link.

Here in Devon we are feasting on the last of our broad beans and the first abundant harvest of green beans, kale and courgettes. The early potatoes are done now, and the first maincrop just about ripe, along with the first tomatoes. The apples are swelling fatly.

Tonight, I'll light a candle and make a small offering of whatever we are eating – a libation to the genius loci and the local gods and elementals (probably personified in mice and birds).

Meantime here's today's Lughnasadh poem for you.


Gathering

Here, fields are starred with bright tight-packed 
wheels of straw and the first harvests are in: 
John Barleycorn dying over and over 
and rising again. The year is already behind 
the hill but the late summer sun still burns. 
I'm kneading Lammas dough and thinking that
the thing about getting older is no longer 
craving the wild conflagrations that my youth 
called for; the thing about getting older is 
relishing the slow-burning fires of a truer love.




© Roselle Angwin 2019