Poems Without Names

At the very end of May, Chase Hill Folk celebrated the goddess Saga (the goddess of poetic inspiration, among other things).  Being so soon after Rites of Spring, I had been working on a short poem about my experience with one of the rituals there, and decided to offer it at the Sage blot.  I've never worked in this kind of poetic form before, so it was exciting to try.  As I shared it with my local community, I thought I'd post it for my broader community as well.

So here it is (in its currently title-less state) -- enjoy.

-Adam

Heavy, thick days ahead

filled with expectation, packed to the brim.

Secretly empty, silently changeable.

Mystery waits for untrained eyes,

new sights and sounds and feeling,

growing and shrinking the light within,

pushing and pulling, looking for instinct

and stumbling.

Dark crows the night

where creatures awake and tell their tales.

Energy from below and within cracks and cackles,

howling with fear and crying with laughter.

A flower, the clay of earth, the embers deep within.

Fleeing, fleet of foot, paws pounding earth,

finding what once was home.

Familiar.

Frightful shines the light from mechanical monsters,

stolen away to dreadful ends

hiding tree to rock.

The sound stops.

Walking slow, soundless,

will anything hear the steps with the rain upon the leaves

and streams overflowing?

Quiet approach, but no prey, only isolation.

The steps up to an empty shell that do no creek.

Wet wool comforts in heavy air,

thick with frozen breath and anticipation –

– no, apprehension.

Is the end inevitable?

Could it continue, long enough to break normal and set free, but lost?

The chant of reality pulls back,

struggling and kicking, like the drop after addiction.

Exasperation and exhaustion – the tortured moment before the bandage comes off.

And when it's gone, it still lingers.

The liminal space calls.

It stands, waiting for a trip and a fall – a miscalculation or relapse.

But the mask is off, and the water is cold.

Shape is solid.

For now.