Hamsa, magical one,
Mystic bird,
Eyes of gold fire,
You rode upon the wave,
The cosmic courses
Of ancient, shining times;
You walked amid the owl-sung light
Of the fairy tree,
By the tall, moon-shifting
Hill,
You saw the walls of shimmering stone –
The sacred lamp-lit cave,
Where the ancient, bent ones still
Lingered ever on,
Their gods too old to be remembered,
Times of other worlds and climes,
When the air sang in a haze
Of sparkle flown
Like dragonfly wings that whirred,
Translucent.
You recall the bright winters of yore,
So long before
The ashen day when
The armies of the stalking skeleton
Broke onto the red field,
Sweeping all with their dire
Iron gaze,
Where now the star-cast
Bell that pealed
From the green mountain?
Hamsa, you are the swift-unfolding wings of light,
The tales softly-singing,
The warm face of the sun
Hamsa, where have you gone,
To what far, dawn-
Lit land?
And when will you return again,
Radiant, with fast,
White-
Maned horses,
Exultant,
As the rose of spring,
On the glad-rushing winds of eternity?
© 2014, Sharon St Joan
Photo: Marek Szczepanek / Wikimedia Commons / This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.