hazel

poem 008

i.

when Cailleach 
is crooning,
tending
the last hearth-fires
this dark season,
collecting 
the final winter-bones

is when Brigid
lifts the light
with her song,
the dawning buds
of wild plum & black haw
swelling with her voice

is when
the vultures are creating
a clutch of brown-speckled eggs

is when i see them
dangling there:

these sun-pierced 
yellow braids
are offering swirls
of seed-birthing smoke

they are elongating,
gushing into the giving
of themselves
to the first warm winds

& nearby
yearning yet never
leaving the hedge-limbs
are these
threshold tongues:

tiny, magenta,
often very still

now lapping loudly
at the whispers
of golden breath


ii.

all of this 
spills into 
& inspires
my body before 
i can reason it out:
 
my pruning saw is sap-licked
& i have gathered a strong hazel rod
 
one that feels 
like the muscles
of a wood spirit

who in a time
away from now
will be adorned
with stories 
& smoke,
a strip of leather
with a single
vulture’s feather

here though
they remain fresh 
& we begin to walk:

     my two steps
     to their one
     of course

i do not know where we are going

i only know 
that the wood spirit
pounds the earth
as we go

     with two steps
     thud

densely
heavily
with that muscle 
i felt

like a heart

     with four steps
     thud, thud

a song 
a path
a compass

     with six steps
     thud, thud, thud

a pattern
an earth listening
with ears all over
their body

     with eight steps
     thud, thud
     thud, thud

an earth
a wood spirit
& me
softening into one
delicious heartbeat