Winter Chill

The silence is threatening,
Evoking the hollow menace of the Bates Motel....
I watch snow falling, incessant,
Splattering over starving chickadees
Fruitlessly rooting in the disrepair of my back yard.

The facade of Christmas intrudes,
Far too much jolly holiday
Looking like a cheap whorehouse in my Mormon neighbor's yard.

I feel vulnerable.
I used to love winter,
Night, chill, solitude....

Now resentments choke my laughter,
The body that no longer stays warm,
The voice whose high notes quaver and whose breath gives out.

The zombie of my youth staggers aimlessly down ice-covered sidewalks,
Where tinsel and flickering lights sabotage my resistance....

And after the holly-daze,
When the world descends again into the pit of icebound silence,
When the chaos subsides and once again there is
Silent snow, secret snow…

When once again I am alone in the chill, the darkness,
With no voices slithering by on the bitter wind,

Then what?

I will not be frightened of winter.
I will not fear the changes brought by age.
I will not be too tired to decorate.
I will not be Scrooge.

I am old, yes.
But I still gain joy in silence, darkness, solitude.
There are still thoughts in my head, words in my mouth.

Silent, private, hoarded up like the nuts under the stump
Waiting under the snow for the journey to resume.

I find solace in the silence, dreams within the darkness, warmth within the chill.
I remember my oft-chanted paean on "darkness, distance, silence"
And realize that the full measure of each
May only be measured against the yearly death of light and proximity and cacophony.

Winter fills me.
Winter rests me.
Winter refreshes and sustains me.

I suppose it is my Season, after all.


© Aisling the Bard
Winter 2008-2009

Lorica...Brigit's Arrow...A Paean For The First Morning Of The New Year

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

        I, Mairin Aisling, in this fateful hour

       Place all Nature with Her power;

       The Sun with its brightness,

       The Moon with its whiteness,

       The Fire with all the strength it hath,

       The Lightning with its rapid wrath,

       The Winds with their swiftness along their path,

       The Sea with its deepness,

       The Rocks with their steepness,

       The Earth with its starkness;

       All these I place

       With Brighid's almighty help and grace

       Between myself and the powers of darkness.

        Every day and every night

       That I say the genealogy of Brighid

       I shall not be killed,

       I shall not be wounded;

       I shall not be harried;

       I shall not be put into a cell;

       No fire, no sun, no moon will burn me;

       No water, no lake, no sea will drown me:

       For I am child of Poetry;

       Poetry, child of Reflection;

       Reflection, child of Meditation;

       Meditation, child of Lore;

       Lore, child of Research;

       Research, child of Great Knowledge;

       Great Knowledge, child of Intelligence;

       Intelligence, child of Comprehension;

       Comprehension, child of Wisdom;

       Wisdom, child of Brighid.

An Everyday Miracle

I was driving home from babysitting for Lauren and Ellie tonight, and I saw the full moon rising over the mountains on the east of the valley. It somehow seems so much more plangent in the winter...maybe I need to find out exactly what the meteorological reasons for this is. In any case, she is amazing, and the sight reminded me of this which I wrote some years ago. So here it is again, with all my love.



Moon Mother

Aisling the Bard, October 18, 2005

We stood last night, a circle of kindred, and watched Her
Coming out from behind the crag of Mt. Olympus

Not shy, this globe of glowing silver light,
But plangent, full and bursting, assertive, a Presence.

She was THERE....and we....?

We stood, cups in hand, watching the unveiling
Sight seen so often, never taken for granted,
Her bounteous presence once again with us,
And yet new, unexpected, ever vivid and compelling
like the air you breathe every morning,
essential and appreciated,
though often unremarked.

But we had to mark Her, this night, this appearance...
It was like the processional of an ancient Queen,
Panoplied in splendor, golden, coruscating, glinting with awareness...
She would not be unregarded.

And we raised our cups, and honored Her, and bowed....
None of us, we urban-dwelling Pagans,
even for a moment thinking of Science or Technology,
But all of us awed once again, as our race has been from time immemorial,
By the living presence of the Lady,
The Mother of Lights,
In Her silvered radiance.

She is a Mystery, and we watch in awe,
As her face reveals itself to us again and again,
Always for the first time.

We drank deep, mead we had made together, and savored the moment...
Ancient wine, ancient Lady, ancient mystery of craft and kith,
Loving our Presence here in timelessness
within the globe of silver light,
And still so essentially present in our own world,
The hiss of cars on the motorway resonating with the pulse of crashing surf,
Recalled in genetic memory, though never experienced.

And at that moment, we recalled
Or thought for the first time,
Of all the Hidden Children,
over our land and other lands

All of them watching
Seeing Her in radiance,
The same glowing silver face
The same breathless awakening,
The same Awe,

Time and place compelling different circumstances
But all kindred, honoring the Mother of All.

We lifted our glasses again,
Gazing ever upward,
And felt our connection
To those unknown faces,
Perhaps also raising glasses in tribute.

We drank to them
A toast to "the Others"
Her other children,
Those we will never see,
But whom we Know,
More intimately, perhaps, than those
with whom we brush careless shoulders
In offices and stores
Where her face does not shine.

We connected
In moonlight
to all those we may never see,
But whose hearts and minds are kin to us
because of Her shining silver radiance,

And She smiled.

To Beirn, On Her Birthday...

A Sonnet For An Unknown Sister

It seems so odd to me we've never met
In any way but electronically
Because the more we correspond, I see
Some things that I have not related yet
To any realm of logic. I can try
To understand our similarities
As somehow accidental. Yet if these
Are catalogued, it seems to me that I
See congruence of talent, taste, and mind
That strike me as not mere coincidence.
We seem akin, not merely friends. And hence
What great delight it was for me to find,
That Monaghan' a name and line we share...
I knew there might be more than friendship there!