The Calling of Creiddylad

Creiddylad,
strings of birdsong
pull your hair.

Creiddylad,
they turn your head
towards the sun.

Creiddylad,
your face is a gently
opening petal.

Creiddylad,
your footsteps call
the flowers from sleep
in hill and mound
and dun.

Creiddylad,
you are unstoppable
in your majesty

although a part of you is weeping inside
for the love of winter
who will soon
be gone.

Creiddylad,
do not turn back,
do not turn
back

to the darkness
of Annwn.

Creiddylad,
step into the light
of the spring sun.

She Walks Between Worlds and Lovers

I. Calan Mai

It is summer in thisworld when she is here
winter in thisworld without her.
In Gwythyr’s arms she is Lady Life:
coming to be as the first snowdrop,
purple yellow crocuses are her slippers
pink red primroses her cloak. Her smile
her lips are daffodils’ long trumpets.
May flowers weave her grassy hair
as she embraces thisworld’s ruler.
In dewy glades Creiddylad is May Queen
in sacred marriage headdress a veil of hawthorn
wedding dress woven from wood anemone
she lies with him in bluebell woodlands
never more alive amidst the starwort.
Hand in hand with his sunshine
she walks radiant through buzzing fields
with a heliotropic gaze of ox-eye daisies
in skirts of meadow crane’s bill and poppies,
face alive with vibrant butterflies and bees
exulting in the dance of pollen’s gold-dust
until she sees her time in thisworld is over
and walks between worlds and lovers.

II. Calan Gaeaf

It is summer in the otherworld when she is there
winter in the otherworld without her.
In Gwyn’s arms she is Lady Death:
petals fading wilting perishing discoloured
returning to the earth with work of insects,
seeds descending into soft and loamy soil,
sinking down with the work of worms.
Into his fateful embrace he takes her
down beneath bones of the dead,
fallen trunks and golden pollen.
In ancientmost forests Creiddylad
is Annwn’s Queen in sacred marriage.
Their passion in the unseen summer
stirs the dreams of sleeping corm,
bulb, knotty seed: movement
of potential, hidden, dormant
until the explosion to life. Each
underground power puts out shoot, stem, leaf,
reaching upward through snow for another sun.
She is their secret growth until the moment of flowering
when she sees her time in the otherworld is over
and walks between worlds and lovers.