Earth Pathways Showcase

Day’s waking breath,
Lies silver soft
Within the folds of earth.

Mist trails,
Tinsellate
Bare branches.

Geese fly
Calling,
Across a graylag sky.

Fox and Badger
Pause,
To sense the scents.

Sharp air of fruitfulness,
Cut
With an edge of decay.

The first frail frosting,
Borne upon
An easting breeze.

And as the world
Draws down to winter;
I hoard, ambered
Remembrances,
Of the golden
Honey days,
Of summer.

Cold Snaps © Martin Pallot 2012

When I was young, as now I’m not,
I read a feast of faerie tales,
Of castles built on craggy rocks,
And pirate ships with silver sails;

Of maidens, heroes, goblins grim,
And treasure held by dragon’s whim.

“Come now my fine one,
step into the faerie ring.”
-the one with the looking glass in it,
It will show you what’s behind you,
(which some say is the future);

My mother said I never should
Talk to strange folk in the wood,
But grandma said – and this quite rightly,
All might be well if I spoke politely.

Beware:
Those men with beard so blue,
Or those who have a vulpine air.

Locked rooms at tower tops
And pools so deep and still.

Food that tells you to eat it,
Or cats with cheesy grins.

If you should follow the spiral path,
That leads into the hollow hill,
Be sure it’s no unseelie rath
Where you’ll be kept against your will.

The queen of the dark elves,
Has a necklace made of broken promises;

Rubies the colour of regret,
Emeralds the colour of expectation,
Sapphires the colour of sorrow,
Diamonds the colour of despair,

Each stone
The shape of a soft sigh.
All hung upon on a cord
Of twisted meanings.

Go out upon midsummer eve,
And soon in faeries you’ll believe,
Go out again on hallowe’en,
You’ll see things that should not be seen;

Have you seen a silky selkie
Shed her skin beneath the moon;

Or the golden gleam of sunlight
On a stone engraved with runes;

Some graven wyrd stone
Of the elven realms,
That tells a tale from misted time,
Shrouded in a Dragon’s breath;
An ancient monsters questing war
Full of bile and fires wrath.
And the war band, strong in shield wall, who
Did not flinch from fates iron path.

Once upon a time the woods that walled us round,
Were home to fearsome fetches and shadow shaping dread,
But then our knowledge grew and burst the woodland bound,
Now all that’s left to fear is the beast beneath the bed.

These tales all came from out the beech,
Or boc as once those trees were known
Which now is book to you and me,
And still their spell I’ve not outgrown;
Now if I sit and read awhile,
The trees surround me still;
And even after all these years,
I’ve yet to have my fill.

Faerie Tales © Martin Pallot

As the sunwise spiraling dance of days
Waxes and wanes with the year,
There falls a time when the lord of the fields
Must lay down his life again,
As his head goes down before the scythe
His spirit goes down to the Earth,
And the world is left to grieve a while
In darkness and in dearth.

May he find new strength in the Mothers womb
And peace in her embrace,
Until time turns and he stands once more
Beside his maiden love,
May her sun lit smile as they pace the dance
Make his old heart sing,
And his shining brow bring life and love
To the rise and blossom of Spring.

Harvest Song © Martin Pallot

Woodland king, in the spring
Your breath lies softly
On the blessing of beginnings.

Watching from the twilight
Of the trees,
Your skin soft glimmers
Like a sunlit glade,
And your shape, shifts,
In the shadow changing
Of the branches.

Cousin of the Unicorn,
You step out softly to us
From the Otherworlds,
And in the deep, forested pools
Of your eyes,
We see our world,
Transformed and gentled.

Yet in the Autumn,
When sword and shield
Adorn and arm your brow,
And your challenge echoes
Off the Oak, to those lesser mortals
Who would dare usurp you.

Then, you rip your realm
To ribbons,
To dress your fossil spears.
Then, you are the lustful lord
Of all the land,
The wild eyed horned hunter.
Questing beast,

Your breath a scream,
That tears the leaves
From off the trees.

Your great heart crying
At the dying of the year.

Stag © Martin Pallot

Harken to the harpers voice
That drifts across the hall,
So sweet and soft, like Apple smoke,
To hold us in its thrall.

Memories of old romance,
The Harpers’ song is calling,
Lovers won and lovers lost,
And maids’ tears softly falling.

He bids ancestral war bands,
So steeped in blood and fame,
To raging run the gauntlet
Of the shield wall once again.

He tells of hoarded treasures,
Of Wyrd, and Dragon’s might.
A Selkies’ shapely shifting,
And the Spectre shrouded night.

Entwining Elfin wisdom
With an Ash-hearts song of strife,
And a Queen of Faeries’ toying
With an ancient poets life.

The Harper has a knowledge
Of an alphabet of trees.
A Rowan’s whispered secrets,
And a Willow’s Moon writ leaves.

He weaves this magic gently
Around the smoke wreathed hall.
So softly, singing dream tales,
To hold us in his thrall.

The Harper © Martin Pallot

Ancient trees and ancient stones,
In wish man, wise man, wyrding wood,
Where mosses mould the lands old bones,
And bring more shapes to mind than ever could
Be born of light and shade alone.

Wistman's Wood © Martin Pallot