Poetry for the Esbat: Buck Moon 2014 (A Love Letter.)

A fortuitous gift from my sister: "Buck Moon" elk plate.

Yesterday my dear sister gifted me with a stack of plates, each one painted in silver & antique gold with a different ungulate; elk, blackbuck, moose & bighorn sheep. Did she know that this Moon around the corner is best known as the "Buck Moon," or was this gesture just another vibration in the Web?

Since I find myself again in the High Desert for this Esbat, I wanted to share a piece from my growing collection of lichens-in-the-Moonlight poetry. But the dish...

And besides, I miss my husband -- this round, more than ever before. It seems odd that it becomes more difficult as I get older, rather than the inverse.

Ah, Love, so mutable.

With that, I take this excuse(?) to assemble a Love Letter out of a poem about Love & Stags which has little or nothing to do with the Moon at all, except that it does because everything does in the fullness of time. I had selected Tarot cards filled with ungulate imagery, however, I am opting out in favour of the pure potency that comes with simplicity. Just the poetry, please. Those who appreciate Love, the Horned Ones or just the natural thrill of the wilderness, this poem is also for you.

The Stags, by Kathleen Jamie

This is the multitude, the beasts

you wanted to show me, drawing me

upstream, all morning up through wind-

scoured heather to the hillcrest.

Below us, in the next glen, is the grave

calm brotherhood, descended

out of winter, out of hunger, kneeling

like the signatories of a covenant;

their weighty, antique-polished antlers

rising above the vegetation

like masts in a harbor, or city spires.

We lie close together, and though the wind

whips away our man-and-woman smell, every

stag-face seems to look toward us, toward,

but not to us: we’re held, and hold them,

in civil regard. I suspect you’d

hoped to impress me, to lift to my sight

our shared country, lead me deeper

into what you know, but loath

to cause fear you’re already moving

quietly away, sure I’ll go with you,

as I would now, almost anywhere.

To listen to this poem read by the author, please visit: The Poetry Foundation's website

I Love you. I would go with you, almost anywhere.

I Love you too my little sister. And I Love the rest of you, you know who you are.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.