Back to the campfire…
It the shadows and glow of the flickering ruddy flames, he looks gaunt, grey, and emaciated as he approaches and sits down. His hair, what remains on his taut pate, is a dirty white and as withered as he — scraggly, sparse and I can see more skin than hair.
(more…)
a fog carries that
pale lost to white
steel rails to hills
raven calling
she brings children
in skirts she gathers
staring straight she
glides barefoot stride
her night velvet
whispered crushing
hand out, calling
my voice hoarse
in the fading forth
i river waiting for
flutter you feather
polishing stone for
night long coming
wrap hair ebon
undress in longing
so sacrifice to own
to you of you and
lay out autumn
there between
the river bare
to take me pale
before the blood
before
of godless ways wandering
between gallows gone to grey
the rocky shore's blackwater
framed in deadwood propped
in seaweed and broken oar
waiting for the sluagh's arms
to embrace a heart of coal
the company of ravens and
a host of crows waiting
waiting
waiting
for snows to fall
hands stained in alder
scarlet against the driven snow
this blood runs to stone
scattered over the path of fells
heather rimed in white
her sun rimed in snow
below and now she rises
blood on fell and stone
I walked the beaded hallways red with you and you did not see, not really. Yes yes that’s very beautiful you said as we walked not the beauty of buckskin and ruddy skin. You saw only the patterned beads.
You did not hear the heartbeat drums causing the red hallways to thrum and pulse as you raced towards the light, making sure you could say you had experienced it all for yourself, but you did not hear, nor see.
You did not feel their blood on your skin, nor the sweat, nor the tears. You said you knew it all, had read it in a book you couldn’t recall the title of, nor author. And you pulled me along, not letting me linger to “feel the feels”. You told me you would find the book in the library for me so I could feel.
I reached for the medicine up in the night, but you bound me to prevent “my escape”.
I spoke to ravens and stones.
You just stared at me.
sun and shadow
dancing the bones
between the tonights
laid over growing
groundcover dark
within the wode
acorn man mad they
call his wanders
under oak over stone
pond water mirrors
his autumn ways
hey hey they call of above
do not walk yourself lost
black laughter rising
he laughs along
wanderwalking the wode
acorn man disguised
It’s time to be off, they said.
There was not much left of the once-long stick I had been using to poke at the dying embers for a spell. Each time I poked, bright orange sparks would jump from the rippling ruby coals. For no particular reason, doing so brought me a flash of joy.
I have always been a firebug. Maybe that was why.
I turned to Raven, their feathers ruddy in the glow of the remains of my campfire. Off where? I asked.
You know, they said.
(more…)we crawled into
innerworld
on our hands &
knees
you kissed me
otherside &
promised me all
night
sage was a'drifting
stones were shifting &
flames burned to
embers
