Wisdom
Hymn to Dagda, the Big Bellied One
All hail to Dagda, wisdom's endless well,
in whom life and death together dwell.
Your cauldron holds the universe entire,
Your harp breaths into life it’s singing fire.
Oh Dagda, guide us as we seek the Way.
‘Tis cause your grace that night unites with day,
that winter weds herself to summer’s glow,
and seasons flow unto eternity.
Your club, the gift of life and death's decree,
does mark the rhythm of the star’s orbits.
Enjoined in Mother Danu’s sweet embrace,
your dance the play of energy and space.
Oh Dagda, in your light we trust.
You make complete what seems unjust.
The oak and seed in you are one.
You are the moon, you are the sun.
O praise to Dagda, good allfather.
In your presence, we find our home.
In your song, we find our name.
In your hands, we find our peace.
I
the scholar puffed with knowledge shows the way
with clever words and labyrinth like proofs
he proudly marches down the path to hell
and claims its flames and misery are bliss
the druid is a fool who knows few things
his words are plain his proofs easy to grasp
he’s unsure where to go but walks ahead
and like a stream arrives just where he should
II
grotesqueness dwells at the extremities
the hunching hulk who cannot touch his toes
the artist whose drawings are monstrosities
the architect’s design a sprawling sore
the lover’s craze that claims his lover’s life
the scholar’s theories without any sense
the priest whose words know not the earth
true beauty doesn’t stray far from the mean
III
the holly clings to oak the oak to earth
earth anchored to the sun runs round its course
and sun runs ‘round black Sagittarius
celestial twirls in space's emptiness
from atoms to black holes beyond measure
the cosmos dances to the astral beat
a red dwarf star ten million years away
the April mud squishing between your toes
IV
good Dagda wrote his scriptures on the seas
upon the jagged silhouettes of cliffs
and in the red and white agaric caps
to praise him is to hear and smell and see
you'll find more lessons in the woods than books
more wisdom in the stillness of the night
than in the pithy words of great masters
forget and then you'll see what’s always been
V
white hare in snow the silence of the night
where all things cease the timeless truth endures
take up the knife and plunge it in your heart
and let your blood run black across the stone
where vision ends vision begins again
a winter forest with the wind for leaves
a sky above without the moon or stars
the sound of bones buried ten miles deep*1
Footnotes
- This is metaphorical. Please don’t kill yourself. The world’s too awesome with you to leave it just yet. Instead, let nature run her course.