May Day
Fertility way
Beltane honours life
A peak of Spring
Earth energies are most effective
Let it begin
All busting with potent fertility
The wheel of the year,
potential becomes conception
Nature is fair
Fire festival glare
Ireland celebrations
Feast of Beltane
Latter times,
Mary's day,
it was called in the rhymes,
they say
Bonfires marking,
the coming of Summer
Granting luck to people's livestock,
without mock
The first day in May Irish holiday
Beltane rituals,
counting young men and women,
picking blossoms in the woods,
lighting fires as the evening stood
Matches for marriages all good,
right there and then,
or Summer Autumn would be when
Medieval modern Europe holiday
Return of Spring observance
Probably originating anyway,
in ancient agricultural roots
Rituals and perseverance,
The Greeks and Romans,
held such festivals
People and their cattle,
would walk around bonfires,
and between rattle
Sometimes leaping over,
embers and flames
All households,
fires doused and re-lit
from the Beltane bonfire
Accompanied by a feast,
with some food and drink,
offered at least
May Day also called Worker's Day,
or International Worker's Day
Commemorating the historic,
struggles and gains made,
by workers,
and the labour movement,
reins without jerkers
In the United States and Canada lakes,
a similar observance known,
as Labor Day partakes on the first,
Monday of September not May
Beltane also sometimes,
goes by the Name May Day
This holiday strongly,
associated with Pagans,
they say,
for fertility come what May
The origins are in ancient play,
across the world this May Day
© 2022 Carol Natasha Diviney
