Fire, Dance, Drum

Out from the deep night they come
Dancing one after the other
Out from the deep woods
Fire in their eyes
Fire in their hands
Fire lights the way as they dance
And come from the night
From out of the deep woods

Song in their throats
Nature in their motions
One after the other
Spirits of heritage come once more
To chant by the hearths
In fields, by the riverbanks
Up atop the mountains
To tell the tales long forgotten

I saw the people of the wood
Faces of moss and lichen and old beech
Some skyclad, some pelted
These folk of the old religion
Feet on the primeval earth
Heads among the sleeping gods on high

One by one
Out from the night
Out from the deep forest
To the beat of drums and thunder
Fire in the wind
Fire in their hearts
Coming back into the world
With wild dance and wild song

Awakened are the dreaming gods
Though they sleep in the sky, under the earth
Atop the mountains and beneath the rivers
The old ways are stirring once again

One after the other
Out from dark night, from the woods
Fire to light their way
Fire in the dance of forgotten yore
Fire and dance and song
Fire and dance and drum

Ex Tempore LI
M.M. — 11-Jun-2013