Huntress Of Skara Brae Poem by Maurice Rowlands

Old Neolithic hunter
Take the trail ahead
Carry your daughter
Beyond the Ring of Brodgar
To the lands of the dead
Young huntress
Spear in her heart
Piercing her last breath
Look up to the rain
Call up to the ancestors
The call of her death

From the darkest depths
Of the Loch of Stenness
They will come
From the burial mounds
They will come
From the standing stones
They will come
When her cycle has begun

Long dead ancestors
Carrying fire
Ceremonial torches
Trailing a path of white lights
Across the night sky
Her bones will rise
When the sun is high
Winter will be soon
Her spirit will dance
Beneath its coldest moon

They will shout
They will scream
Eyes rolled back
In a waking dream
Is it God
Or Gods
Or a ceremonial sacrifice
Balancing the odds
A hundred human voices
Calling up into the black
A thousand celestial voices
Calling back

At the echo of the drumbeat
To Maeshowe in the Bay of Skaill
They will retreat
Beneath the stone circle
They will retreat
Back into the earth
They will retreat
When her cycle is complete

Old Neolithic hunter
Close your eyes
You will see her
Beyond your sacred land
Through the mists and the rain
Running across the sky
Spear in hand
Hunting once again