The central fire blazes still
With long charred sticks, we eat our fill
Our forest home awash in light
Hemmed in by the black of night

A singer and a song in weaving
Crickets listen, make no sound
I watch the shapes of flames in leaping
An abandoned board game on the ground

Two run off into the green
Two dream beneath a bracken bush
Another sleeps against a log
As singing intertwines with song

A clearing in the old wise trees
A place that now you’ll never find
I see as if it were yesterday
These were my own, this place was mine

We leave the rocks, a ring of coals
We gather up our sleeping rolls
We call the dogs, the hunt unfolds
Vivid shadows from such days of old

We sing the sunrise when we wake
Two brave the stream, jump off a rock
One stands beneath the arch stone gate
To ask a sign for trails sought

Several run to scout ahead
One recites the deeds of friends
Beside them I do all I can
And hum the hymn of sea and land

I breathe in vast and endless sky
The rolling hills so far away
I track the ground with well-trained eye
And wonder what the sky larks say

Pristine and full of mystery
The land yet scarred by history
Above me only stars
Around me everything is ours

In awe of how I’ve lived this long
In twilight now the new day spun
The birds go quietly to rest
To rest we sing the sunlight down

By the playful flames that warm us
Oh we the wanderers all
Without somewhere to call our own
Yet unquestioningly we belong

The fire bright we circle ‘round
The wild boar is cooking now
We thank the shining ones, this life for life
That we might live, another night

I can almost hear the curlew’s cry
And the many voices of our family
We pass around a mug of beer
And thank the gods that we are here

Tell me what else can I say
I see as if it was yesterday
Faces etched in fire’s glow
If I was there, I’ll never know