poetry

by

The Queen of the May

 

She calls

And now you know you must answer

Softly at first

At Spring Equinox

She was all innocence

All light-voiced song

And you know She calls

The Queen of the May

The virgin voice now lusty and deep

Full in the belly and full in the throat

Her song caresses you

Like her fingertips caress the belly of Experience

And you answer her call

 

She calls

And you are faery-led

Into the wild haunts

To lay yourself down

As sacrifice

Upon the altar of ecstasy

To dance free around the faery tree

To let your heart be filled

With the songs of sparrows

And swifts

As they scream overhead

To touch the grace of the deer in the shadows

To feel the heartbeat of the earth

Pulsing beneath your feet

As you set you roots down

Even as you reach towards the skies

The Beltane time is nigh

 

You hear a cry

And it is your own soulsong

Escaping your cherry-red lips

Filled with laughter

And grief

Freedom

 

You dance the circle round

Whispering secrets to the trees

The eyes of the hidden folk following

You know who you are

You know who you were meant to be

And in your breathless dance

You sweat your prayers

 

And She hears them

And with crystalline clarity you know

In the blood that runs through your veins

And the thoughts that course through your mind

In the lives and loves of your ancestors

You know you are not the only one

 

And you revel in your witchdom

 

The music slows

The eyes of the does drop to the ground

As they lower their heads in reverence

For here She comes

Sovereignty

And you look into Her in the eyes

And you see the May Queen

 

You see all that you were

And all that has been

And you nod and you smile

She takes your hand

She knows every crack in your heart

She knows your inner land

 

And as the bright sun fades

And the stars begin to shine

You honour your past

Your future is bright

And the magic never ends

As day turns into night

She blesses you

With your own inner sight

There is starshine in your hair

There is elphame in your soul

 

And you remember

All you have been

All you have seen and been told

And you have come home

 

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(Photo by Graham Haynes)

by

To Autumn, A Poem by John Keats

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To Autumn by John Keats (1820)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.