The Stag, Cernunnos Poem by Sheena Blackhall

His coming was so quiet,
Lightly, lightly,
Stepping between two firs.
I thought he had grown from the air
A cloud-beast,
Sailing between two regions,
Child of the toad-brown bog,
The cauldron, mist,
Whose vipers' tails
Curled slithery down the hill.

He stood, a living quest,
In the dying sun.
He was brideless, brideless,
I could have kissed
The ground that held him;
The riven veins of his antlers
Ran with fire. Like amethyst
His eyes. No Nature's plaything -
That much compelled my reverence.

His crown, an out-stretched tree
Bark-branching, horned in gold,
Embraced the sky.

He was a king, certainly.
After his silent going, I
Was leaderless, leaderless.
The space where he had been
Was empty. A lake of loss
No footprint marked his passing,
He took his shadow with him
Like a cross.

It was as if a sage
Carried his knowledge,
Peerless, peerless,
Into another age.