samhain -- oh, i miss you so

samhain.

celtic new year.

dark side of the moon.

a day to feast

and remember

the dead.

kids knock on my door.

"trick or treat,"

batman, more kid, says,

and a fairy princess 

holds up her bag expectedly.

a smile tugs at the corners of my mouth.

this is the new way of doing an old thing.

i feel emotional tonight,

remembering my grandfather,

and all my relations,

even those i never met

but who still walk with me.

later,

with love and a kiss,

i pour a hefty amount

of irish whiskey into the earth

for their feast in Tír na nÓg.

a few salt tears

fall into the mix.

oh, i miss you so.

le grá go deo

Saol fada chugat 

Cha d'dhùin doras nach d'fhosgail doras

(copyright 2011)

for bear on a friday morning

old growth pine

and i'm tucked within

the bearded mossy ones.

bear is ahead of me,

scratching itself against wood

to mark the way.

it leaves behind hair

that i reach for

and hold in my hand

like gretel.

faster now,

i jog to keep up

and watch

as moccasins form

over sneakers

and claws

form over

the leather that was
just there.

deeper.

further.

wilder we go.

i stop

as the bear joins

the great council.

"sit with us, young one."

great woman,

ursa major,

comes down out of the caelum

and heats the center.

sparks of light

flicker and dance

us into seed stars

that form

the dna of her hide

and the teeth of her

careful mouth.

i look around
and i'm out there
in the sky
with the seven sisters,
winking back at myself.

all is wild
and right.
aho.

(copyright 2011)

Shifting the gaze

 Breathe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ur-intimitat in der seele

betwixt and between now.

the man in the bog

holds out a golden fish,

"take it, lass.

claim yours."

and i do.

scales become skin

and the gold fashions

itself into a drum

that pulses

in the pulmonary cave.

grandmother sits there

and lights a heart fire

that burns the way clear.

wild galloping in the distance.

i am aonghus's daughter

of the stone and cliff clan.

the ancestors step through.

the veil is thin

and the bones in my body

are theirs. 

(copyright 2011)

autumnal tumble

i wake
to a hypnogogic vision
of animals on stampede
out of the great cosmic cave.

rumbling,
tumbling,
twisting --
the vibratory
reverberations
launch me wild
out of my bed
to join the migration.

i run alongside
a purple horse
and hurdle myself on,

clinging to its mane

unbridled and unbound in the night,
free with my delight.

woman ends.
what bones are these?
mine?
its?
hair flies
who can tell its owner?
who cares.

hooves and feet
fly so fast
that time blurs
and slows
and stops.

in the dreamtime now
with a band of feral brumbies,
the alpha leads the way
through the mystery
and fear falls away
like autumn's dead.

(copyright 2011)

for Grandmother

sunday night and

i am singing to

the water spirits in

my bathwater.

lulling them with

soul music

and thanks.

but, 

then, 

a flute lulls me

out of the bath

and onto a journey

to meet the grandmother

i know in my dreams.

she breathes

somewhere in dakota lands -- 

where the thunderbirds fly

and black elk once prayed.

one horse shrieks by

on his dappled gray pony.

his heart-seared song becomes 

wind on the plains.

i run wild after its words.

"come to me, brother.

come to me, sister.

speak to me."

they gather near my hands

like appalachian fireflies.

whispers, so many whispers.

i pull them to my ear.

"tell me your story, little ones,"

and i weep to hear it:

"i search for the buffalo.

where are you?

be the buffalo

so i can find you!"

i cry for the wolf

and howl

for those buried in teeth.

buried in braids.

buried with hatchets

and guns.

and for those never buried

but who inevitably

became the land

that whispers history through

the night air.

mitakuye oisin.


(copyright 2011)

fighte fuaighte ("woven into and through each other")

gaelic.

my father's tongue.

fado. fado.

anam cara, listen to my tale. 

once upon a time.

in a lonely boat

sat a fisherman

who had drifted far 

from known waters.

he did not know

that other fishermen

stayed away from this bay.

"haunted waters,"

they would murmur.

oblivious, he sat and

his hook drifted

and sank

and flew

with the currents,

reaching down

to grasp and settle

in the bones

of skeleton woman's rib cage.

he pulled,

happy to have snagged such a large fish.

surely he would be seen a hero

in the eyes of his hungry people.

but skeleton woman

resented the disturbance

and struggled and thrashed 

against forced verticality.

her stubborn action

tangled the lines

and tangled her bones

and the kayak above

bucked

and

shook.

yet, for all her fighting,

she continued to rise.

he did not see her bald head surface.

 he did not see her coral-boned body

and the crustaceans on her old ivory teeth

until she clattered before him.

"aggggghhhh!" he wailed

and paddled hard for shore.

but no matter how he maneuvered his kayak,

she stayed with him,

blowing breath across the waters.

he leaped out when he reached shore

and ran across frozen earth.

and she followed behind him,

bumpety-bump in the night.

into his ice tunnel he crawled,

and she crawled behind him,

knee in her ribs,

foot over her elbow,

heel on her shoulder.

at some point

his fear abandoned him

and he looked kindly upon
this boney woman his lines had ensnared.

he sang, "oh, na, na, na.

oh, na, na."

as he gently untangled her

and dressed her in furs

when her bones were set.

and she

laid still 

and said nothing,

praying he would not 

take her out to the rocks

and break her apart completely.

drowsy from his labor and terror,

he soon drifted to the land of dreams.

she watched as some action therein

led him to shed a tear.

with a bony finger,

she reached out,

caught it, and drank it up greedily.

this single tear was living water,

and she drank, and drank, and drank

until her thirst retired.

and then she began to sing

and sang to fill her body with flesh --

with breasts long enough to throw over her shoulders.
sang for hair and pale moonbeam feet.

sang for the ripe divide between her legs

and all the other things a woman needs.

and when she was done,

she sang the sleeping man's clothes off

and tangled in the skins with him,

joining together in a good and lasting way.

...dadme la muerte que me falta...
so that the life i agreed to can live.

(inspired by and built upon clarissa pinkola estes's telling of "skeleton woman,"
which can be found in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves.)