note:

Bean sidhe: gaelic; pr. Ban - shee; from Bean = Woman & Sidhe = Faery: sometimes known as bean chaointe (keening woman); a woman of the Fae, sometimes appearing in her animal form of weasel, stoat, or crow, who’s cry or keening presages and marks a death.

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I

Do you know
how does it feel
what does it mean
Do you



I.2

November blows in late this year. Sails in on a low cover of gray cloud, sweeps in with a mist of cold rain. November blows in late this year, with roses still blooming

and wet winds swirl
up from the valley
to strip these hillsides bare

with roses still blooming

Tonight
the sky
is dominated by a great halo
half as big as the sky itself

Tonight the sky
whirls around a dark conjunction
the full Moon and Mars dance in a silent pas de deux
in Taurus opposing the Scorpio Sun

I know how to read mystic signs
it’s never done me any good



II

to dance on the edge
the precipice of being
to sing the secret songs
and not understand the words
to remember
and not know it as a memory


the gravity of spirit binds
the particulate matter of soul
and mass does not equal
speed
or energy
or light

or any combination thereof


the physics of the unreal
the quantum mechanics of the irrational
the calculus of insanity
this is why they are wrong
they draw the map and mistake it for the territory



III

Question:
Do the dead know our secrets?
Question:
Do they forgive us if they do?
Wondering:
if they have the answers to that which haunts our lives
Question:
No question.



IV

Today
November wraps itself in unseasonable warmth
lingering at a distance
hands behind its back
face hidden from view

These woods, skies, leaves on the ground
this place
shrouded in mist


Winter is a quiet season

but not this

Autumn is a riot of noise
restless, raucous
fitful, loud

a bean sidhe cry behind soft grey cloud
alien hoofbeats and crackling static
and the herald of death to come

this deceptive time of veils and mists
and the whispered promise
in a language I can’t understand
this whispered promise
in words I only know in dreams


this whispering darkness
that sustains me
and destroys me
this gentle grey veil is sharper yet for all that
it pierces me
drawing blood the color of fog


the whispered lies that promise
peace or
simple silence or simply
closure to this howling wound


something in the darkest part of me
vibrates at the frequency of Autumn



V

This is the time they say we can reach
through the corridors of bones
this is the time they say we can read
the mystic weave, the tapestry of souls
reach through like water, like air as thick as thought
to what we hope, pray, and fear
is waiting
to take us Home.

And what does it mean?
How does it feel?
Do you?
Do you know?
To dance on the edge?
To sing the songs you cannot know?
Do you know?
Do I?
How can I not?


But I am not a dancer
and I don’t know how to sing
What does it mean?
To walk the edge of time
the precipice of being?
Do you know?
Do you?

warp and woof, weave and weft
This is sacred work
this weaving
this is a holy work
this tapestry
this insubstantial tapestry of
filaments and wheel-spun dust
a holy thing
and I would unmake it
if only I knew how

it undoes me
unravels me



VI

And what does it mean?

To dance along the precipice means to seek a certain truth
which, once achieved,
you soon learn to regret
Autumnal truth
stripped down to jagged black bones against
low-lying, scudding clouds
cold glistening moisture
on a piecemeal carpet of broken brown flesh
and a lingering kiss of descending mist
the exact consistency
of a lost and foundering heart.




Epilogue: The End of the World is Greatly Overrated


Because I dare to embrace my Shadow
Because I know how to feel joy
Because I eat pain for breakfast every day
Because I weep at beauty
Because I swim in a sea of sorrow without drowning
Because I’m tough enough to love without being broken by it
Because the finish line of this here race is death,
but to win you’ve got to get there without killing yourself first,
and I’m a dark horse who’s beating the odds.


So far.


And so far is good enough


So far.

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