#WWP – This Jolly Beggar

Life in You

When I feel blue
I think of You

As Shadows fall
I hear Your Call

Fears clutter the Night
I keep You in Sight

Pain on each Side
I in You Abide

Christ is for me, my Life.

*Do you know what this flowering plant is?*

Sammi's WWP #236: This weekend your challenge is to write a poem or a piece of prose in exactly 38 words using the word “Blue”.
Punam's Ragtag Daily Prompt: "Clutter"
Eugi's Weekly Prompt: "Shadows"
Fandango's FOWC: "Life"
Photo for Cee's FOTD challenge, November 21, 2021:
Flower of the Day Challenge (FOTD): "Please feel free to post 
every day or when you you feel like it.  
Don’t forget that my FOTD challenge accepts 
gardens, leaves and berries as well as flowers."

A penny shiny from the gutter
she stoops to pick
places auspice in her pocket
passing people on the pavement
like a ghostly apparition
passing through an open door
escapes into the vellichor^*
of shadowed selves in memory’s mist
who greet her on Halloween
at Harry’s Magic bookshop.

*vellichor: The wistfulness of a second-hand bookshop.

Eugi's Weekly Prompt - "Halloween"
Punam's RDP Saturday - "Apparition"
Sammi's WWP #233 - 48 words exactly, ""Vellichor"
Top Image credit: sergio omassi from Pexels
Bottom Image Credit: RDP Saturday

A-Souling

*Photo by Ján Jakub Naništa on Unsplash*

A-Souling

“Hey ho, nobody home . . . ?”

His sing-song question fell on no ears but hers,
deaf all others to its celebratory tones
the night of All Hallow’s Eve.

Tenor voice attuned to hearth,
lights in hands they enter
to find soul cakes laid on barrels,
beer and apples.

None heard him but her,
would never leave her
till her heart stopped, like his:
a toast before departing,
as midnight strikes.

“I will come and sing no more
’til this time next year.”

Soul cakes? A-souling? Unfamiliar with these terms are you, like I was? According to wikipedia, soul cakes are spicy shortbread-like biscuits given out to “soulers” who come round during the days of Allhallowtide singing and saying prayers, a’souling, in fact.

One traditional song, “A-Souling,” was made familiar to us by Peter, Paul, and Mary who sung it as a Christmas song, which for most parts of England it has become. The group Lothlorien sings it in the traditional mood of Allhallowtide.

Click here for the lyrics.

Sammi's Weekend Writing Prompt: "question," exactly 84 words
Sammi's 13 Days of Samhain -- Day 4: "soul cakes"
Punam's RagTag Daily Prompt: "celebration"

The Land of the Young (Tír na nÓg)

For lyrics and translation to the song, click here.

Strange the tale of an elven king’s son
Who lured a maid into the land of the young.
There she took tea, fated never to return
To the land of the living where hopes reigned.

Once she escaped her besom buddies of elven-land
But euphoria died when her long black locks turned white
As haunting memories of the land of the young
Made her yearn for the revelry of elven friends.

On the steps of a cathedral she stood skyward gazing
Behind her from the woods the elven king’s son stood imploring
But she had found a love beside which earthly magic paled
A love eternal from her Maker that over all prevailed.

“I cannot go with you, sweet heir of elven halls
Though surely will I miss you and all your kith and kin.
I have chosen wisely with wisdom from above
To live and die a daughter of the God who does me love.”

The elven lords and ladies left behind remained wondering
Their days of wine, their nights of dance, youth forever blooming
Thrown aside by a poor maid as if they all were nothing
Impressed them not, sincere or not, and soon she was forgotten.

Crimson's Creative Challenge #154 prompt: Image credit Crispina Kemp
RagTag Daily Prompt Thursday: "Euphoria"
Sammi's 13 Days of Samhain vol ii: Day 2 – "Besom Buddies"
Eugi's Weekly Prompt: "Haunting"