Time Sequence
Part 2. Chronos

Chronos was one of the Titans.
His sacred bird was the Raven.
Chronos along with the other Titans
Including Ouranos, the Heavens,
And Gaia, the Earth, the planet we live on,
Existed before the Gods of Olympus.
The Raven is the oldest and most revered
Corvid and he is larger than his cousin
Corvus corone, the Carrion Crow,
Who has cohabited with humanity since
Time immemorial.
Human and crow, crow and human,
Coexisting and perhaps co-dependent.
Alas their relationship is not always cordial.

From the Ark Noah first sent the Raven,
An unclean animal according to later laws,
Seeking for dry land,
A practice that voyaging Vikings also used.
It was the Dove that brought back the branch
Showing the waters had receded by the eleventh month.
The Dove was now in favour and fit for eating,
The olive branch signifying the fruitful harvest.
All of the past was wiped clean and
Agrarian Noah and his sons and their wives
Would be able to reap the abundance of
The world renewed.
“Go forth and multiply and be fruitful”
Exhorted their God above and alone.

The succeeding generations did indeed multiply.
Children of Noah spread across the face of the Earth.
Many called the lands their own,
Tribes creating demarcations and territories.
Great leaders were born and great cities were founded,
As was earlier expounded.
Time wears on but what of Chronos?
“Father Time” as he was also known.
His people were superseded, to them
The Raven not unclean but sacred
And thus forbidden to eat, taboo.
Just like the fruit of the Tree of
The Knowledge of Good and Evil too.

The tribe of the Raven were not alone.
The various tribes of people claimed they had powers
Originating in their long standing affiliation,
Affection for their sacred animals.
All other animals were game for meat
Excepting their own sacred protector.
Appearing in visions and dreams,
Totemic creatures vouchsafed identity,
Created a sense of unity in the tribe.
Corvus corone and their kin
Were held in special regard as they
Communed with the dead, ingesting within
Flesh from the ancestral kindred through time.
Left in the enclosures of the otherworld
Crow and other carrion picked clean bones.

The ancestors could then rest in their homes
Brought reverently by the descendants who
Kept their memories alive through stories.
Tales of their origin and their journeys through life,
Without this continuity where would the tribe be?
And the Raven could see into the realms of the dead,
Carry messages from one world to the other.
This was its power.
And for the tribe and the sacred house of bones
Where the remains of the ancestors stayed
Benefits of many kinds were theirs to have
When they paid attention to the messages
That Raven and Crow would bring,
And of which the singers of the tribe would sing.

However the world was changing,
Newer practices than those of old,
The hunt became less desirable
When now the land was for arable.
And with crops came a shift in outlook
For so much relied on the climate and seasons
The sky was now deemed to have power
And held life in the balance.
Great Father Sky, the world over was
Revered and took the form of man
No more abstract Gods like Heaven and Earth,
Or her wild animal progeny.
Father Sky now appeared and ate and drank
With human beings, sleeping too.

Thus did Zeus overthrow Chronos
And supplanted him and the Titans
As father of the Gods.
In his fury he could darken the sky,
Throw down destructive lightning,
Sulphur to annihilate cities in wrath.
And to appease him there must be due sacrifice.
The animals now tamed and domesticated,
Chosen ones for his table.
Wine to drink and intoxicate,
Stir up the fires of battle and contend
With demons, monsters, dragons and men.
At his altar the carrion were driven away
Their portion no more freely given, but an ill omen.

Offerings burned in supplication,
Smoke rising to the Sky, into the air.
And with it prayers for a good harvest,
Good fortune and the good life,
Not necessarily for the good of all
But for key individuals seeking favour.
Continuity in an ever changing society
Ensured by inheritance and by contracts
With God, the Sky Father, as their witness
As well as a party to the covenant.
Men rose to the top of this new world,
Men with worldly lust in their hearts,
Women freely offered to quench their fires
But with no thought to the cost.


No Dancing on a Dead Planet

Welcome agus Fàilte
To the masked ball, the Danse Macabre,
The swinging scene which fills my vision.
Politicians jive talking as they
Pas de deux with duplicity,
Reality a wall-flower rejected and alone.

We have built cathedrals to progress
As we hasten towards everlasting destruction,
The congregations stupefied like opiate junkies
While massive juggernauts rumbling over us
Pulverise everything to dust.

“Wake up, wake up!” exhorts the poet
From their book of Revelations
And with a rebel yell we cried
Less, less, less
And were idle no more.

Grasping the rose despite the thorns
A resurrection will be wrought
So we may pass her on to the youth,
Full of grace and vigour and hope,
Looking forward to the future world
Where they can dance on to infinity.


De Anima Mundi

Our Earth is soul-sick.
Humanity’s disease of greed
Has inflicted wounds on our Mother,
Trauma that her soul flees from.

Mother Earth has a fever,
Now we must pray that she recovers,
And send her healing light
Which illuminates her waters.

The healing of the waters
Will bring down her fever.
This she already knows and
Her precipitation will put out fires.

These are the fires we started
Constantly burning,
Enclosed in engines.
We have engineered her destruction.

Natura nihil facit frustra.
Nature does nothing in vain.
We are experiencing but symptoms,
Attempts to regain homeostasis.

Unless we listen to her wisdom,
Take heed of what she is saying,
Set our course on a new direction,
We too will be lost.