at  HERGEST CROFT,  12/12/02

 

It comes and perches by my window

in the Medlar tree

black-inked in intricate Japanesy explosions

of  bare, branch-tipped twiggy script.

The waning moon - at 18° Scorpio to be precise -

slipping behind the lornly cedars and pines

trellised and laced against the hatching east

apricot and spun gold, hung in an egg-shell sky

 with misty glimpses of the hills in-between.

 

He is fatly silhouetted

warm against the setting stars

and chirrups, hopping from angle to angle

stating his case: Wake up you morons!

Who could sleep when the mountains float there

in the bluey distances

and the great trees of Hergest commune their ancient communing

 breathless in purest monochrome

against the luminous backdrop of dawn breaking.

 

This is the exact moment

I birthed that wonderful creature, my daughter

through the same sacred crack between the worlds

she stepped, all of 35 years ago.

And I look in my book and find

her same starry companions greeting her

reminding, rejoining her solar returning passage

crossing the portal, her fey ship sails

and I invoke their blessing on her blessed head.

 

Meanthewhile, puffball thrush still holds his pitch

calling, calling

so I quake and shudder wondering:

the early rooks shafting across the beaches

how I remember to breath

    how each beat of my heart can invoke the next

when I was hooked, fled away into alternate spaces

lost in the trees, the magical Ground

chanting my bones and roots to glory

shouting Come!  Be one!