Mystical poem dedicated to the beloved dead and to Hecate. Written for Samhain, 2024.
1. I was kneeling, In my family crypt, Lighting incense, Perhaps I was weeping The candles dripped, Flickering in the low light And the pale wax, Burned my fingers I emptied out my heart, And my aching lungs, Weeping and talking, Keening in the night The smell of graveyard soil, Filled my nostrils, I heard their voices, And was transformed 2. Beloved ancestors, Heroes and villains, Stories brought alive, With every retelling Mothers and grandmothers, Soldiers and beggars, Poets and thieves, All singing in the night A harmony and cacophony, Whispering and shouting, Jostling and shoving, Begging to be heard And there I knelt, The wailing woman, The dirge singer, Their sacred witness 3. The dead desire, Their hunger and thirst, And sacred celebrations, Live on in the Underworld In the dark of the Moon, At the fork in the road, To the baying of hounds, Offerings are accepted In the in-betweens, The temporary tensions, Those shadowy places, Between the worlds That ancient beloved maiden, Triple-faced dread goddess, The Moon in shadow, Waits silent and smiling
Art: William Blake, “Hecate or The Night Of Enitharmon’s Joy”, (1795)