Prose, Prayer & Poesy II
(dedicated to the deities of Inspiration and Creativity!)
HORIZONTAL RAIN
Through nine months of drought
I've waited for this: a white seagull
tossed sideways by the wind;
and this almost horizontal rain
across the haze of street lights -
strings of raindrops
shining in the dark
like Ariadne's thread,
winding me back to the years
when everything seemed an omen -
a hawk's hieroglyphics
upon the high air,
the shy wishbone crescent
of the newest moon.
Cunningly, a forgotten book
would open to the right page.
A stranger would show me
a shark's tooth,
fossilized in the shape of a heart,
or was it a moon-sheen womb?
Mystery was my mistress,
and life lay ahead,
in tremulous future tense,
like beads of rain about to slide
from dark delicious leaves.
Already in childhood I tried to sip
those quivering droplets
like a sacrament,
the shining darkness before flowers.
I longed to give myself
to what was yet to come.
I wanted my destiny
to ravish me completely.
But by midlife I noticed I was deep
in a labyrinth,
and whether I'd be a hero
was uncertain,
and who or what
I'd meet in the end,
or is it at the center -
black hole or a womb of light
or are they the same -
The only writing on the wall
was this:
places I haven't traveled to
I would no longer travel to.
Great love I'd waited for
already lay behind me.
Only tenderness was endless.
These have been the tools of my survival:
tenderness born of exile
and words born of silence;
and the cunning - whose,
I don't know -
though perhaps I'll meet her again,
the Great Mother who handed me the skein
so I could retrace the journey.
Ioanna Warwick
The Gift of Samhain
Vervain
mugwort
patchouli
and basil
she ties
in a bundle
to burn on
her altar
among rosemary
leaves when
she must
converse with
the spirits on
All Hallow's Eve
summoning
the benevolent
ones, offering
them visibility
in exchange for
the gift to heal
broken auras
and restore
karmic
tranquility.
Crowned in
blue light
she pours
water from
her cup of
libation
returning
from the
astral plane.
She closes
the circle
thanking
every element
before burying
rose quartz in
the Great
Mother's name.
Bobbi Sinha-Morey
published in Silver Wheel, Samhain 2001)
Autobiography
Kore in the 21st Century
The maiden has fallen away from the mother.
Pushed or pulled or dragged into separation,
she wanders through the wild world,
stumbles in a barren city that has no light.
Mama, I can�t find you.
Mama, I�m all alone.
Mama, no one knows me.
She turns away from the roaring mouth,
staggers before the upraised arm.
You�re not my real mama.
The father�s no help at all.
Spared no rod himself,
Unmanned by her unspeakable power,
Unmanned by his own constructs,
He has no idea where to look.
His age of enlightenment has burned out.
As fierce as a cat too long unstroked,
she walks without compass, sits beside broken walls,
cries where no one will hear, squats in an open room.
Mama, I�m hungry.
Mama, please come find me.
Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D.
Lady of Pazardzik
It was nearly seven thousand years ago
in Central Bulgaria
that an artist
took the earthy clay into her hands
and sculpted a pregnant goddess,
then placed her in the temple oven,
perhaps with a prayer
for the fields,
fertile and moist.
Now, at the close of the twentieth century,
you, in the form of a terracotta reproduction,
are enthroned on my desk,
face tilted up,
hands resting on the divine belly.
As I sit before you, I am nauseated,
a waste dump site like so much of the earth now.
I do not trust anything.
Still, the moon began again last night.
If I pulled down the copper blinds and rested in the dark,
if I placed you upon my patch of dark hair,
would you love me always as only a spirit could do?
Would I feel a pulse rise from a coiled damp place?
Lady of Pazardzik,
what is behind those thumbprint eyes?
I touch you as if I were blind.
My late start makes the day fall down all around me.
Will you carry me over the sacred sown fields,
wet fields of imagination?
Sprout me, grow me, let me ripen,
but most of all, use me for something!
Use me
Starr Goode
published in Her Words, Shambala Press
Violets for Attis
Are you my son or my lover?
Am I your nurse or your sister?
Red means stay and green means go
From cave to mountain-top.
Whatever is the mystery?
A pine tree wrapped in linen�
A child born of god and woman�
BUT WAIT--the Earth was sacred FIRST.
So, dance for my grief and
Slash your arms in ecstasy.
Red means bleed and green means growth,
And when I rise again, YOU will rejoice.
Lori Nyx: Late Spring, 2003
All poetry/prose/prayers appears here by the gracious permission of the authors.
Art on this page from www.Sanfords.net and Image of "The Lady" is taken from and linked to Mythic Images. com!