Hedgerider's Lament~Part IV

The Hedgerider's Lament
Part IV: Samhain Sestina

The harvest grain is thin and sere, the barren cattle half dead

with want of it, shadows not meat hung on their poking bones.

The starving rat is under the straw. Two dogs meet it in the night;

one barks, the other silent grabs its neck and shakes out red.

The hollowed return hungry from the wars where they were lost,
trading bedlam's bright blood for pandemonium's gaudy hour.

Senses shun the hedgerow's bloom, calcified grey in a headstoned hour:

sandburr, bullnettle, goathead, thorns all sharper the longer they’re dead.

The crouched purple aster's maze unpurls to pad them in a battle lost

to puncturing, blue eyed tears disjected over the tracing of summer’s bones.

None can say who'll see the winter out or even one more sunset’s red

downbedded on the grass, when the sun’s head is spiked this night,

a jack o lantern by bonfires built to feed, to frighten night,

to burn the past and with its heat push back the cold coming hour.

Slaughter’s remains make spirit suppers, as hopes and sins flare red.

Bring out the warding masks, for we’re face to face with all our dead

searching in the circling, finding framed in flame the bloody bones

of that which dies for us; flowers, lovers, friendships,years and memories lost.

Every other fire now lies dead upon the hearth, heat and virtue lost

to be made anew. I tend the futile telling in the ghostdance parade of night

peeling the apples, watching the crows, rolling the knucklebones

to say how the favors will fall, what black or golden hour

stand bare, danced out before us on this night owned by the dead

and only borrowed, where every fortune told is washed in red.

All things in the flames fly up; the shadow finds us still in that red-

drench bath. Balefires burn high against the sum of all that’s lost;

I feel you push on the thinning skin with that crowd of grinning dead,

your barkbrown eyes black pits in a skull that prisons night.

I set candles in the west window at the witchwind's darkest hour

to burn, to beckon, and to grieve your moving bones.

So many times I’ve called but never do any tumbled bones

cross over, though your table’s set with summer wine red

in the cup, ringed with daisies. I’ve sat through the last ashen hour

playing your blue tune, danced an old dance over what can’t be lost.

From the corner a mummied cricket rubs its broken legs all night

in a threnody to send you back to the thankless work of being dead.

What is it you have to tell across the void in this hour of the lost?

Your disappearing bones are a scrawled sign, blood ink of deepest red

glowing against the scroll of night, read only by the dead.

 October 2011



Posted for    OpenLinkNIght   at dVerse Poets Pub

You can find the earlier poems in the Lament series, Parts I-III  here

Process Notes: Samhain (pronounced sau-win) is a Gaelic harvest festival and festival of the dead originating in pre-Christian Ireland, associated with the last harvest, the end of summer and the Celtic New Year, the slaughtering of livestock for winter, bonfires(balefires) both of purification and where the bones of the slaughtered cattle were burned, 'guising' in masks and costumes to mingle safely among the dead, who are said to be at their closest to the living world at this time, and divination for the upcoming year. It was and in some places still is celebrated on the last day of October and first of November, and is considered the progenitor of our present day Halloween.

Hedgerider's Lament~Part III

Note: This is the third in what will hopefully be a set of  four sestinas on the pagan holidays which mark the turn of the year, and of the human heart. Hedgerider's Lament, Part I, (Yule) is here, and Part II, (Candlemas), is here.

The Hedgerider's Lament

Part III: Beltane Sestina

It’s been a killing winter here circled deep in the hedgerow’s walls.

I hear the hungry crying, birdsong and brisk bee buzz drowned out.

Wrapped in the scorpion’s tail of drought the new sun builds no fires

and seeds fester as they’re planted in a darkness shorn of green.

Somewhere a heartwound hides itself, seeping dully under the moon

and all are made to feel that pain till the fires outburn the curse.

Things are coming through that shouldn’t, tangled with the curse

It strengthens dark and brings them kicking out at the charmbuilt walls.

The faery lights are spectral blue, dim and distant in bowls of moon.

The tongue cleaves to the mouthpiece and the song will not come out.

The world hangs on the coming of the one who brings the green.

Behind locked doors barbed evils thicken, old flesh no longer fires.

So out we go to find the nine woods needed to build the fires,

twin pyres to burn nine murders and nine times nine despairs, curse

fright that sets the handle slipping stripping deadwood from the green

fuel and future even mixed in the razorsharp hedgerow’s walls.

Babes are counted, a white horse passes vast as the veils thin out;

pale hands grip tight the reins of light that pull the quickening moon.

In the darkness that is absence floating in night’s red eye, the moon

looks down on fractals, throbbing temples, cold heart fires.

The weasel eating her young, the blighted seed that won’t sprout out

grim her pocked sad face and set her calling to lift the curse,

to begin the windsigh song the harpist brings to raise the walls

so all in the hedgerow’s circle know the lover’s kiss of green.

The flower bride she walks in May, all cup in search of filling, green

her gown, breadbrown her hands, face limpid as a slice of moon,

summer’s lord for her arms, green man of the land that knows no walls.

She carries her basket of wishes to make the spark for the high balefires

and all that dances through them comes out sound and free of curse,

for every spite of winterlong will be ashed and trampled out.

No more shelter for the fiddling tongue ravaged by betrayal, thrust out

black bloated at all comers in pours of poison bitter and green.

No more room for winter’s old man’s rage or hag’s hardbitten curse

when the summer lord and the lady come to dance beneath the moon.

There the skin is thin and the maypole thick by the heartwood’s fires:

stop, reverse and turn, as its green ward weaves the hedgerow’s walls.

Re-spin the curse to blessing, crossweave sun with braids of  moon.

Pull up the dead. Sins' tinder flares to burn out on the green.

All seen, all felt is new again. Life fires light, singing up the walls.

June 2011

Posted for    OneShotWednesday  at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

Process Notes:

I’ve been working off and on on this for several months and  meant to have it ready for the true date of Beltane, which falls at the beginning of May and marks the midpoint of the sun’s equinox in progress towards today, the summer solstice, but the demands of a poem a day in April shunted it to the back burner.

There are too many legends, myths and archetypes associated with Beltane and the coming of summer to list, but I’ll just touch on a few I’ve incorporated here. Balefires are bonfires of purification that symbolically burn away the winter and its ills, marking the goddess of fertility’s arrival and celebrating her wedding with the sun god, when birth and growth of crops and livestock replace the death grip of winter. As always, I've taken a lot of liberty with historical detail and only loosely follow the pagan canon.

You can find a bit more general info here at wikipedia

Image: Summer Solstice Sunrise over Stonehenge, 
Photograph by Andrew Dunn, 21 June 2005 courtesy wikimedia commons

Hedgerider's Lament~Part II

Hedgerider's Lament~Part I can be found here
Hedgerider's Lament~Part III can be found here

The Hedgerider's Lament

Part II: Candlemas Sestina

Winter rides the leafless hedgerow, black and aching for the thaw

a frozen masque of mummers misbegotten by the hag.

A dying moth in winter’s web, I’m null, unwarmed by fire.

I call to the guardian of the living earth to forsake her vestal  well

to bring her yellow days and put an end to the strangling white;

instead of snow make milk for lambs and wake the sleeping sun.

I pulled the blackthorn's sloes and brewed the gin of autumn’s  sun,

drank deep, then burned the sticks to keep alive until the thaw.

The Cailleach’s staff struck and brought the tedious vault of white   

where water was married to restless air in the couplings of the hag.

There are bruises for the hand that cracks the ice-crust on the well

and earth’s white cloak hisses on the coals of the worldsmith’s fire.

Once amber green my fingers tore the world-skin, meeting fire;

finding only the haunt of a look, a tendriled scent that fled the sun.

No living hand can draw your twisting wisp from that black well.

Only wishes' mist can pass between, and dust awaits the thaw

I hunker by a murdered fire and bandy curses with the hag,

who laughs and shrouds my hedgerow tight in her bands of white.

Yet there’s Another coming when the blackthorn flushes white

and the wind will thrash the greening twigs as all is cleansed in fire.

The spring will dance her mayday on the apron of the hag,

and unwind the days and bring her bag of blue that holds the sun.

The Cailleach will freeze, a standing stone before the thaw,

while her snow becomes white water rushing azure to the well.

So day’s full light expands and ice is melted from the well.

Tomorrow’s gin is brewing in the blackthorn’s buds of white.

Grass-green grow the seedlings as the hedgerow starts to thaw

and winter stubble burns but I’m still cold beside the fire.

The blood-burned breach still shows itself a curse beneath the sun.

The silvery white bride’s smile still flirts with the eyes of the hag.

But a bride might need a midwife someday, hidden in a hag

and a hag might be more than a  weight  best cast into the well.

The carcass of  dead caresses burns to ashes in the sun

and births a skin of amber green that swallows up the white.

Summer gives her pledge of life and bids me tend her fire,

and all her seed and kindred in the razor leaved hedgerow’s thaw.

Perhaps this year the sun will shine so clear and burning white

that the hag will laugh to see me in the mirror of the well

and I’ll forget the thing that’s broken as the world  begins to thaw

Posted for OneShotWednesday at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

For pronunciation of the word Cailleach, click here

I’ve borrowed heavily from Gaelic folklore in this piece, so I append a few background snippets to cast a little light on terms and definitions. Those interested in more detail can follow the wikipedia links:

Candlemas is a day of purification in the Christian faith often associated with the ancient Irish festival of Imbolc,  celebrated in early spring.

“… In Irish and Scottish mythology, the Cailleach …is a divine hag.. The word simply means 'old woman' in modern Scottish Gaelic.. The Cailleach evinces many traits fitting for the personified Winter:...she fights Spring, and her staff freezes the ground. …Some interpretations …describe the Cailleach as turning to stone on Bealltainn...

I’ve also made a few references to wells and fire that are associated with the Cailleach’s counterpart, Bridget or Bridhe, goddess of spring and summer, christainized as St Brigid.

Image: Cailleach  by RedDragon102857

Hedgerider's Lament~Part 1

Hedgerider's Lament~Part II can be found here
Hedgerider's Lament~Part III can be found here

The Hedgerider's Lament

Part I: Yule Sestina

It’s the time when amber green light soaks the sponge of mist,

Dripping softly where worlds rub shoulders in vast night,

Dreaming in the nest where brown eggs shift and crackle in the air,

Where I’m looking, looking, hearing soundless bells in the blue.

The grass bends, the sparrows talk, and magic guards this place

As I edge myself along the walls of the razorleafed hedgerow.

I see them all, patient, living, bent to purpose in the hedgerow

Waiting where the edges are sharp, or under the amber green mist.

Horehound lolls silver tongues, mint droops, amanita puts in place

Spotted red chairs for sprites and roofs for toadlings. Shadow night

Hides monkshood in its cobalt cap, telling me something fatally blue,

And ladyslippers wait for mousewomen where foxgloves dot the air.

My skull is a tangling rootball of hair and bone and air.

My skin is ambergreen bark against the razorleaves of the hedgerow.

My eyes are storm clouds flickering outwards, grey and blue.

My rabbit nose is twitching, pink in the dripping mist,

Breathing in and out, sifting and shaking the smells out of the night,

Passing hands above the edges, feeling leaves for the right place.

I see a medicine fire drifting the air with grey, burning in the place

Where a fallen piece of star has struck a match against hard air,

Making sage smoke and sweetgrass smolder in the night,

Like tobacco in the pipes of gnomes carousing in the hedgerow.

Other nights I lift a glass, beg them wash their beards in mist

But tonight I cannot stop to joke for the place is near,very cold and blue.

I can hear the worlds sloshing in their shells, spinning by in the blue

Almost touching, noses pushing the membranes towards the place

Where the new year sleeps in the old year's arms,damp with mist

And the quick bear the dead upon their backs, howling thru the air

Silenced by the heavy hand  of what dwells in the hedgerow

Because the time is not yet, though it nears in the shortening night.

                    

Day has sighed and gone, spent from matching itself to night

So perfectly. My hair jigs up in Tesla’s dance, jumping white & blue.

I feel them creeping, riding the top of the razorleafed hedgerow

Where it's thin as my skin. Now all but my hair is frozen in place.

Burnt tumbled smells, the soft horse muzzle of the night air

Nudges them at me, while at last the steelsharp leaves begin to mist.

                         

Now I can see you blur and move, in mist waves of ribboned night.

I reach out to the air.There where the thorns have turned  blue

Is the place I can pull you from your lost world, thru the hedgerow.

                                                                       

December 2010

Posted for One Shot Wednesday at the inimitable One Stop Poetry

With thanks to Rabbit
The first of four sestinas loosely based on the neopagan festival days of Yule, Candlemas, Beltane and Samhain.