my broken fingers
flint at cold fires
wet with rust & remains
rattle old the fractured stones
clacking 'round this
hollow & shattered head
a sleep of ashes
ashes & rust & rain
this cast off dross &
rusted remains
paper bark and
fine hair flutters
on the pale winds
chasing ripples
over a secret lake
For a change of pace, I decided to revisit ogam/ogham for a poetry prompt tool. As with the Elder Futhark runes, I randomly select one of the ogam fid as a prompt for a bit of micropoetry.
Because I have a poorly-developed sense of humor, the title of this post refers to a variant of the word, fid, “few”. While still in common usage, “few” is not technically accurate to describe the letter — but I like my wordplay.
Beithe (in Old Irish, beith in modern Irish) means “birch”. The fid has a number of cryptic meanings depending on the kenning or its inclusions in the medieval word lists of the filli, including: white, pheasant, livelihood, “withered foot with fine hair”, and “beauty of the eyebrow”, amongst many, many others.
I do not embrace Robert Graves’ mystical meanings as I feel they are not based in scholarship and that they disagree with people who have made a lifetime study of the ogam. While there is evidence of possible filli-coding within the letters (per the lists poets were made to memorize), there is little evidence that magical meaning was the intent and the association with magic appears to be a modern invention… But that is another post.
Perhaps I’ll eventually bring fid back and finish my in-depth exploration of their meanings.
i yield my flesh to
the carrion feast —
strip me down to bone
to scatter me to stone
and bleach me to sun
wash away my stain
for i do grow ever weary
badh touched my shoulder
as i held the remains of
old friends in a wooden box
i turned to the battle crow
as she leaned forward
laying her night beak
on my pale lips in kiss
numbing my flesh to tingle
well after i woke under
the reapers moon
