ae freislighe – radical druid

Just Past the Fire: ae freislighe

Published on April 12, 2025

It should be more troubling:
a lack of common sense abounds,
and this thin gruel bubbling
is not fit food for the hounds.

Is there anyone believing
they will eat their fill tonight?
When your day’s spent aggrieving,
what meal brings you delight?

Look where the wolves assemble
just past the last fire’s glowing;
we prattle and dissemble
while darkness keeps on growing.

10 APR 2025

Published on January 4, 2017

Let’s let go of sanity,
imagining the reason
appeals to our vanity
and falls in the right season;

making none too troubling
what chaos springs from hating,
from leaving at boil, bubbling,
desires left too long waiting.

Let’s imagine destiny
a mere self-serving conceit
to define the inanity
that leads on to our defeat.

Let’s wait, but not patiently;
why waste our time at resting?
Light spars shadows, blatantly;
likewise, our doubts need besting.

04 JAN 2017

Published on November 4, 2010

The news can be troubling:
there’s always some fresh unrest,
some great tension bubbling.
Each day, I hope for the best,

but still I keep wondering:
how wise is that course today?
Must we keep on blundering,
pretending to know the way?

04 NOV 2010

Published on October 13, 2005

The gods may grant petitions
to endless years of prayer;
not lay too strict conditions;
in that granting, be fair;

but it is not sedition
to think them often cruel,
seeing naught but perdition
in their lessons and schools.

Think of it as remission,
when one’s blessings, like disease,
or shadows of suspicion,
do not fulfill, but tease.

13 OCT 2005

Published on April 1, 2004

The path that we’re traveling
has today only begun.
So don’t start unraveling,
don’t think the whole race is run.

To enjoy the adventure,
we’ll take time with what we see,
cast away old indentures
and seek past what seems to be.

Though each step seems surrender
to some distant unknown goal,
for our souls we’ll find provender
by acknowledging the whole.

There’s no end, no conclusion
to this journey that we make;
cast off that sad illusion
and each mile is no mistake.

So think not destinations
but of time to live and laugh.
Let dreams come to gestation
while we’re traveling the path.

31 MAR 2004