Beltane

You were my Mama’ s May day.
She carefully
And instructed me,
To gather flowers,
For our next door neighbors
And to place them on the porch
Step or in the doorway handle.
Then i was to yell out,
“May Day!” Ring their doorbells,
And like a frightened fairy,
Or some half changeling child,
Then i was told to laugh and run away.
This was how my mother
In her childhood
Celebrated the month
Of May.
Beltane…
Comes to mind
A pagan festival,
Ribbons , Ribbons, Ribbons,
Swimming round a may pole,
Dancing singing their sweet sounds
Which today are lost to us now
A celebration of Mid Ages
A celebration of civilizations
long past
diminished beneath
a panel of glass, inside
an Art Museum of Antiquity
Beltane
a sexual rite
a coming of age passing
Beltane
stroking the flowers
igniting young and bold
passions,
but
that part
she had left out
the part of the nudity
the part about
sexuality
instead she
simply instructed in me
a love for tradition
to become a elfin heirloom
a wild changeling child,
the eighth of seven
dwarfs-
a mythical imaginary invisible
creature.
as I went up and down between
our next door neighbors houses
grabbing bundles of flowers all
i could carry-
then leaving these offerings
on their steps
crying out from my fresh young
lips
“May day! May Day!!”
Even now I can recall
her soft spoken pride
in it all-perhaps passing along
a tradition from her
own huge family
that bore seven children?
Beltane
You were my Mama’ s May day.
She carefully
And instructed me,
To gather flowers,
For our next door neighbors
And to place them on the porch
Step or in the doorway handle.
Then i was to yell out,
“May Day!” Ring their doorbells,
And like a frightened fairy,
Or some half changling child,
Then i was told to laugh and run away.
42.456482
-83.034230