I recently took a class called Introduction to Rosc Poetry through the Irish Pagan School. It’s taught by Irish poet, Geraldine Moorkens Byrne and it is highly informative and inspiring.
The rosc is an ancient poetry form, magical, often political, sometimes prophetic. The Morrigan’s Prophecies are examples as are Amergin’s famous invocations of Ireland.
Here’s my homework. As readers of this blog are likely to know I am an ally of the Protectors of the sacred mountain Maunakea and the efforts to keep it free of a proposed observatory project called TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope).
False Tower
A false tower not built
the TMT, 18 story observatory
–like at Dowth
in darkness remain
only a plan, a bad plan
a troubling dream
vapors vanish in morning breeze
mammoth mountain rising from depths of sea
Maunakea
umbilicus of heaven and earth
red cinder and snow
even in tropic latitude
towering rampart
silver sworded
glacier scarred
summit above this world
you rise
majestic giant
Your Protectors undeterred
a great host
anchored in truth and ritual
victorious under sun and southern cross
highest mountain defeats
the Thirty Meter Telescope.
—Bressal’s* tower the spell was broken
Here too, this tower, it is not built
the spell is broken, the desecrators driven
far away over the vast oceans.
*King Bressal was noted in Irish place lore as having attempted to build a tower to reach heaven in the vicinity of Dowth (which means Darkness) with the help of his sister’s spellwork, which made an unending day for the laborers. But the king raped his sister and the spell was broken and the tower not completed. See Anthony Murphy’s Mythical Ireland for insightful elaboration. This king and sister have been in the news lately with the discovery of incest in remains at the Brugh. Perhaps a distant folk memory.
Check out course offerings from the Irish Pagan School here:
Finnchuill's Mast 