Poetry for the Esbat: Mourning Moon 2011

How quickly the months roll by. I find myself a bit taken aback that this is already the fifth Esbat since I began quietly writing here in this corner of the ether. I look out the window this afternoon & see a wall of snow-covered birch trees. They seem to be huddling closer together these days. Is it for warmth? Or are they still unused to the silence?

November brings us the Mourning Moon, or as the Farmer's Almanac calls it, the Frost Moon, or Beaver Moon. According to the almanac, this was once the time when beaver traps were set (before the water froze) or, possibly it was because this was when the beavers were observed beginning their winter preparations. I made a cursory search for the origins of the name "Mourning Moon," but I only found discussions about it being a time of letting go. Perhaps you know its beginnings?

For this Esbat, I selected a poem that speaks to me not just about our luminescent Lady's face, but the quality of season, the bare trees, the changes & the moods they invoke. It speaks to my last walks only a short week or two ago. How I already miss my wanderings.

Solitude Late at Night in the Woods, by Robert Bly

The body is like a November birch facing the full moon
And reaching into the cold heavens.
In these trees there is no ambition, no sodden body, no leaves,
Nothing but bare trunks climbing like cold fire!

My last walk in the trees has come. At dawn
I must return to the trapped fields,
To the obedient earth.
The trees shall be reaching all the winter.

It is a joy to walk in the bare woods.
The moonlight is not broken by the heavy leaves.
The leaves are down, and touching the soaked earth,
Giving off the odors that partridges love.

Blessings to you this Esbat my friends.