hey hey it's the first of May

May 1st is brimming over with symbolism - the transition from spring to summer, regrowth, the meeting of the human and spirit worlds and of course the international labour movement.

May Day liminal

Where were you, thirty-first of April,
And the zero’th day of May?
Obscured by smoke from Beltane beacons -
Drive cattle ‘tween the tway -
Or fervent recitations of
The Internationale, comrades,
By Billy Bragg, with fist on heart
Unite on Workers’ Day?
Did I oversleep Walpurgisnacht
Or get drunk on Calan Mai?
We’ve skipped from spring to summer
Without my notice either way.

So quick-quick to the holy well,
To sunwise-walk and offer
Up a precious shiny thing,
Picked carefully from the coffers.
Set yellow flowers at the door,
Roll, maidens in the dew,
Burn the horse-bones, ember-leap,
Appease the spirits true.

A festival of optimists,
Regrowth, fertility,
Though those two days I thought I glimpsed,
Keep calling out to me,
Forty-eight hours I’ll see no more,
Though e’er imaginary,
Lacunae of the calendar,
When dwell the faerie-sí.