In the Shadow of Cairn Hill
Are they true the old tales, that he who slay Queen Maeve,
Neath one of these cairns in death enjoys sleep?
That the grass and the rushes of the sides of the hill
His corpse till resurrection safely does keep?
We know not, is it, and is he but a tale,
I wonder as past it I walk today,
Stories now kept between pages of books
And a people who think things are better that way.
We are all the poorer these stories we don’t know
We are like a boat with a motor but no sails,
We get where we are going, we are what we are,
But not what we could be, forgetting these tales.
In the shadow of Cairn hill, generations before,
Had legends, had faith, honesty and truth,
We lost the first, the second, and are losing the others,
Life is about the rule of the brute.
There will be a time when the times of the present,
Folk will talk of fondly by then being long past,
They will rue what we knew we forgot and we lost,
Ignorance rules when knowledge is forgotton, and will last.