Rekindled

there’s a rice-pounding song tonight playing

somewhere not too distant the hunter’s moon
bathe in all her glory unconcealing
the primeval dance of the gathering
where the reapers offer what they have sown
to the goddess of the earth and planting

i hear their silent chanting and singing
the last of the Tumatagaumen
with his uncouth orison commencing
the rhythmic gyrations - the quickening
i see them all
                        glistening flesh and worn
ere the embers consumed its own breathing

they touched me not softly with rememb’ring
this pagan ritual     this primal passion
but the bardic voice within my being

there’s a rice-pounding song tonight playing

somewhere not too distant the reaper’s moon
will embrace my adamhood arising
they will hear me scream my poems of hunting