Into the Wood
A door in heather,
on the mountain, waiting
numinous, liminal.
Thorn and thistle,
an offering to Medbe.
It is she who kisses the dew
and calls the dawn to sing,
she that smiles upon the foxglove
and paints the moon on her wings.
Oh, Night Lustre,
transfiguring our reflections in the stream,
glimmering through each night,
like some note played by the water’s edge.
Obscuring radiance,
fractal masks.
We take off the day
and put on the dreich hands of twilight.
We return to the fairy ring,
a circlet of footsteps,
scorched into the earth by the fervor of starlight.
The Leannan Sidhe,
besotted, she wails,
wringing embers from her wings
and sparks from the gorse.
She calls to us.
Sipping of stardust,
we stand before the cherished oak,
fallow.
I hear a rustling of leaves,
susurrus,
an interlude to the corbies’ lullaby.
They call us.
Gently, we step, in trembles,
irascible forms in the trees.
This lachrymose ripening of hearts.
Sound reduced to smoke.
Light renders fruits,
discarded, otiose.
Soil repents our thirst.
Return me to that Lagan stream,
to the deeply known,
that I may drink
and sing the Yew’s lament.
Return me to the wood,
grown in my tears,
vast and tangled.
Flower laden paths lie amongst the primrose.
Let me trod again,
barefoot on the moss.
Beautiful ❤️