Yet Another Three Pagan Poems

Alchemical Sonnets

Four worldly indivisibles divide the sphere,

Plus three unworldly to define the here:

Fire, spirit, water, after, air,

Before, and earth: of these six will pair;

Three pairs, and spirit, again give four

That mark the now, a sevenfold metaphor

Much like the week: we could name the days

After seven other gods, or in other ways

Keep track of when we are or will be, yet

We have them, and they’re good enough to get

Us from play to work and back: why fight the map

When it’s the land that needs to be explored?

But mind the land: though you bridge a gap,

There are chasms at hand you cannot ford.

For every quantity, that many qualities are found:

You need only look. Here is nothing profound,

Merely that answers depend on what you ask:

“Ask, and you shall be given”; so the task

Is to be a Prince of Serendip: to find

What’s not looked for; what sleeping’s divined,

To wakeful accept. But wakeful is the key:

Not to populate the world with fantasy,

Archetypal or otherwise, but to see what’s here:

The Allmind’s mercurial, will not speak clear

If it can pun or tease, and thus tell all

You need in fewer words: unroll the ball

Of string, and find Jerusalem’s door:

The sunwise spiral in Ariadne’s floor.

The Crone

I am the typhoon that ravages the civil lands,

The wind that cries on wintry nights,

That wears the mountains down to dust,

The quake that tears the Earth to mountain peaks,

The dance of death that beats the living down,

The flood that fills the barren plain with life,

The sting of bees, the teeth of bears,

The gleam of madness in the poet’s eye.

I am She who raises and She who pulls down.

I am Chaos, and I am alive.

The Marriage Song of Moon and Sun

I am the white and somber wench,

Knife of the hunter,

New of the moon.

I climb the hill of the changing halves

And burn in leaves of the verging trees.

Leap of the shadow,

Flash of the arrow,

Crimson and silver I reap and weave.

I am the gold and amber man,

Sired by the sun,

Born of the moon.

I slay the Gorgon for my shield

And take the musing Moon to wife.

Sword of the father,

Wand of the mother,

Sunwise and whirling I ride the sea.

I am the green and secret wife,

Fire of the wedding,

Bells of the sea.

I wind the round of the breeding moon,

O furrow the earth beneath my knees!

Blue of the harpers,

Gold of the pipers,

Threefold and singing I plow the seed.

I am the iron and scarlet man,

Blow of the hammer,

Cry of the steel.

I riddle the secrets of the trees

and lead the dance of the harvest moon.

Forge of the mother,

Spark of the maker,

Fourfold and lightning in every nerve.

I am the black and comely bitch,

Pipes of the crescent,

Beats of the Earth.

I stir the fire of the howling night

and bless the cup of the fertile seas

Gongs of the dancers,

Flames of the banners,

Sunwise in silence I clear and sow.

I am the black and violet man,

Branch of renewal,

Words of the owl.

I guide the track of the spiral dance

Across the sky and under the waves.

Mask of the hero

Reversed in a mirror,

I am the reaper who stays to sow.

We are the two who yet are one,

Mind of the cosmos,

Word of the real.

All that is different is still the same.

From us you come; to us you go.

Peace to the lovers,

Joy to the poets,

We call you to join in the dance of love.