Celtic Metamorphoses

 

A horned god stands back to back with a second self. 
You pass the gatekeeper, into a field of metamorphoses. 
You turn into the curl of a wave, or a waterbird in flight. 
Fish becomes man, dog becomes dragon.
You reach for a flagon of unmixed wine
and the handle becomes the hound that chases the duck
that swims into your mouth on a red river. 

Long-beaked bird-men are alive on a Shetland cross.
Gold and silver and bronze glint at the throats
and on the forearms of queens and heroes.
Here everything is in connected, everything in flux,
vital energies change form and surge beyond form. 
A technology of enchantment captures minds
and binds them in tendrils, endlessly looping,
making knots without end, no strings you can pull. 

Are those the antlers of an ancient elk, bigger than moose.
on the head of that statue from a warrior grave?
You put them on and look with his sight over fertile land,
proud of your kin and ready to fight for them.
You reach under his leaf-shaped shield.
and turn the unseen handle that gathers the force
to send out your spirit double on its excursions.

The boar is everywhere, before you and around you. 
Be careful. You pause to hear the hot howl of war
from the throat of a boar-headed carnyx.
Swords and shields, iron and oak, ash and bronze.
Shields that are plain at the front but have hidden powers
at the back and in the coiling serpents at the grip.
Shields with glaring eyes and hidden faces of raging bulls.    

You find your end at last, in the cauldron from the bog,
under the fierce stare of gods you cannot name.
You swim in bull's blood, down to the scene of passion
where a naked woman warrior exults, sword in hand,
over the dying bull whose potency will pass,
with the rush of his blood, to one who is called this way.

- Robert Moss