The Anathemata
Mabinog’s Liturgy (continued)
In this year
at the shrill, cruel, lent of it
the young sun well past his Ram’s half-course, runs toward the Bull.
The virid shoots precarious and separate as yet on the fronding wood.
You can see: One, two . . .
I can see three . . .
Five!
there
there on that old baulk
they’ve polled
for Summer Calend’s tree.2
Aunt Chloris!
d’ sawn-off timbers blossom
this year?
You should know.
Can mortised stakes bud?
Flora! surely you know??
David Jones notes
2 On the analogy of a terminology connecting us with Antiquity and still used in one part of this island. In Wales May Day is still called Calanmai, the Calends of May, the Summer Calends. The Winter Calends, Calangaeaf, fall in November and these two days were the two pivots of the Celtic year, as are similar dates among other pastoral peoples.
additional notes
see also
For the five wounds of Christ on the Cross, see page 141.
comments
The old wood chosen for the maypole is sprouting five buds for the five wounds of Jesus. The poet asks Chloris (the Greek goddess of flowers) and Flora (her Roman equivalent) to comment, but neither has anything to say.