Poetry for the Esbat: Mad, Mad, Mad Moon. (November, 2016)

"Infernal Apparition" by Paul Lormier, 1848

Lilith. (and the lilītu?)

Dark Moon, She is (they are). But I shall explain...

"The energy of the evening was lacking & what little there had been died away in an unceremonious manner. At an unusually early hour, the other women -- now more than vaguely disaffected -- meandered home, leaving just the two of us & the Night. She stood, I sat. I looked up at her & realized how much & in how many ways I will miss her. She has always struck me as unusually carefree & a touch New-Agegy, but not tonight. This was supposed to be our parting, but she was mad, mad, mad. There was room now to speak of taboos -- that which has left us all reeling inside but was left unsaid. Instead of exchanging pleasantries, we shared our chagrin. Raising her rich, full, singer's voice in disgust, she shrieked, 'Why the fuck do we train for this shit if we do not use it for anything?!? The time is over! No more messing around -- if you know how to do Magick, do it people!'" 

Who said this? Was it the dark, luscious woman before me, or was it... Her?

As far as I can tell, the Earth has split open & one large, festering pustule of human loathing has been loosed from its containment. (Not that it is the only one.)

So be it. 

(as long as those of us with any wit do not remain idly grazing in the pastures)

***

The Works. So many, so little time.

I began an ambitious project a year or so ago (one of many, believe me) -- a shrine to Lilith. 

It is not for me, it is for Her.

It has waited patiently for me to complete it, but the time for patience is over. Her rage & despair are mine. They are ours.

May Her fire be unleashed & may Her steely, self-assured grit carry us through the unwanted Darkness (there is a difference). I will do my part to facilitate this. 

Rupi Kaur, artist, poet, woman.

Segovia Amil, artist, poet, woman.

Use your Magicks*, Women. 

And remember this: The moon lives in the lining of your skin.

***

Like the feline, She sleeps ever so lightly.
The Moon/La Luna, from Patrick Valenza's 
Trionfi Della Luna & Trionfi Della Luna Paradoxical limited ed. sets.

The Esbat... not something I would normally associate with Lilith, a Dark Moon sort of creature. I am not one for Dark Moons (or Lilith really) until now & that stems purely from an elephantine indignation shared with so many of my kind. 
Women: 
We are magnificent. 
Thus, it is in a kind of tangled web of Moon forces, womanhood & sheer exasperation that I present the poetry for this Esbat. 


Ode to Naked Beauty, by Pablo Neruda

With a chaste heart 
With pure eyes I celebrate your beauty
Holding the leash of blood
So that it might leap out and trace your outline 
Where you lie down in my Ode 
As in a land of forests or in surf
In aromatic loam, or in sea music

Beautiful nude
Equally beautiful your feet
Arched by primeval tap of wind or sound
Your ears, small shells
Of the splendid American sea
Your breasts of level plentitude
Fulfilled by living light
Your flying eyelids of wheat
Revealing or enclosing
The two deep countries of your eyes

The line your shoulders have divided into pale regions
Loses itself and blends into the compact halves of an apple 
Continues separating your beauty down into two columns of
Burnished gold
Fine alabaster
To sink into the two grapes of your feet
Where your twin symmetrical tree burns again and rises
Flowering fire
Open chandelier
A swelling fruit 
Over the pact of sea and earth 

From what materials
Agate?
Quartz?
Wheat?
Did your body come together?
Swelling like baking bread to signal silvered hills 
The cleavage of one petal 
Sweet fruits of a deep velvet 
Until alone remained
Astonished 
The fine and firm feminine form 

It is not only light that falls over the world spreading inside your body
Yet suffocate itself
So much is clarity 
Taking its leave of you
As if you were on fire within 

The moon lives in the lining of your skin.



Extra Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends. You may need them. 


*We all have them. What is yours? 
(If you have no answer to this question, find it.)

Poetry for the Esbat: Two Moon, Not So Blue (May 2016)

XVIII, The Moon.
From The Lover's Tarot Deck by Jane Lyle. 

Given my need to make up the difference this Esbat, it would be cleverly apropos if this coming Full Moon was indeed Blue, but it really isn't exactly. 

However, I will still make my amends this month by including the poetry I had planned for last month's Esbat. This time, it's a "two-fer."

Many people-projects & collaborations have swirled around & about, unfurled their fronds & closed up shop in recent months. As I prepare to migrate once again, I breathe a sigh of relief. I yearn for the quiet stillness of the slumbering Desert, the Sunrise ritual of incense & coffee with Breakfast Canyon, the soft Darkness of Night's starry cloak & of course, eye contact with The Moon. 

This should be a good time to reflect upon lessons. Lessons learned.  Lessons observed. Lessons digesting. People critters, they are a curious lot. Sometimes it is a very good thing to step away from the fray & regain the Outsider's perspective.

◦◦◦

The poetry for this Esbat (& last) is about people-lessons. These poems can be understood in many ways, upon many layers, from many perspectives. Read & think. Think & read. Nothing is ever really as clear cut as we might prefer. Everything is an onion.

And the Moon. Here, the Moon, She is the Teacher, the Initiator, the Instigator, not necessarily the distant (or close), cool (or warm), Object-of-Reverence as in so many of the devotional poems. But, I like this side of Her. 

Last month's poem I snatched from the Evolver Social Movement's feed. Unfortunately, there isn't any credit information for this piece & it has now become something of an internet meme, making it even more difficult to track it's author... but isn't that just the way of people critters? Lost sources aside, I cannot succinctly express all the layers of Life that I have discovered in this short piece, but I will say I have not yet stopped peeling away at it. 

"You lost her... (to) dimly lit stars." Credit unknown.

The poetry for this month's Full Moon has explicit source credit -- something I really dig. It also seems to demand that it be revisited repeatedly over a long period time. I have considering it for about a year now. I am not done. This piece from Rumi comes from a rare publication housed at Utah's Marriot Library. (Isn't that just keen how the departure poetry matches the destination?):

"NEW RULE: A POEM BY RUMI
Sibyl Rubottom and Jim Machacek
San Diego, CA: Bay Park Press, 2000
N7433.4 R73 N49 2000
A flecked, navy wrapper is folded in three, housing the primary sheet which is, in turn, folded into three, unequal sections. Letterpress from Bodoni and Times Roman on Fabriano Rosaspina Bianco and Fox River Confetti wrapper. Images created using polymer plates, monotypes, linocut, and screen printing. Edition of forty-five copies. University of Utah copy is no. 19."

New Rule: A Poem By Rumi, illustrated by Sibyl Rubottom and Jim Machacek. 

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends. 

Poetry for the Esbat: Flow Moon, 2016

Dancer Delilah (Flynn) crafting her Art, underwater.

There is a powerful synthesis happening. Strands of my life way, my cosmology, my relationships, my body, which did not seem to connect now find themselves intimately woven in the most sensible ways.

Everything keeps making sense & that is just a bit freakish.

○○○

In the past, when asked about whether I would be willing to "teach," I replied, "I only teach my accident." It was a gentle way to decline. 

But strange things & strange persons happen. And sometimes, they change the rules. Or, perhaps they unveil rules you never knew existed. And in this change or unveiling, I began to teach. Of course, it has not been in the manner to which I originally consented or anticipated, but isn't that just the way of things?

Flow.

One of my True Loves is Sigil Magick. Yet being a critter of much privilege & little for which to want, my practice of the Arte is often lacking impetus. Perhaps this is why I needed to teach the art to others.

Here on this Esbat I find myself working out the last details of a traditional Golden Dawn style talisman for presentation -- but also for myself -- the pieces of which seem to be attempting to tie my worlds together. The focus of this talisman, in brief, is Flow. Hence the card for this Esbat, "Going with the Flow," the Ace of Water from the Osho Zen Tarot -- a deck I discovered while working on this particular project. 

Ace of Water, Osho Zen Tarot.

"The figure in this card is completely relaxed and at ease in the water, letting it take him where it will. He has mastered the art of being passive and receptive without being dull or sleepy. He is just available to the currents of life, with never a thought of saying "I don't like that," or "I prefer to go the other way."

Every moment in life we have a choice whether to enter life's waters and float, or to try to swim upstream. When this card appears in a reading it is an indication that you are able to float now, trusting that life will support you in your relaxation and take you exactly where it wants you to go. Allow this feeling of trust and relaxation to grow more and more; everything is happening exactly as it should." -- OZT

And isn't that just so very apropos for this Lunar occasion?

Concurrently, my studies in dance have been directed at this subject of Flow & somehow (ha!) this brought me to discover the underwater dance images of American belly dancer Delilah:

Her flowing (quite literally) being so illustrative of a condition I seek to realize for myself.

Not only in Dance, but in Life. (And are they not the same thing?)

○○○

This brings me to the poetry for this Esbat. In keeping with all the flowing & synthesizing & surrendering, I present a poem I have been sitting on (in my Poetry Foundation App) for several years now. The reasons for this I do not know, perhaps it was just not time. If I am honest with myself, I actually think I never quite understood it completely -- until now. 

[As if the moon could haul through you], by Neil Fischer

As if the moon could haul through you

Its tremor of light and stone,

Be cleared of sound. Plough

The mind's noise until it's a shine

In the purl of south-bending river that bears

Itself toward a blacker part of the forest.

If you hum, hum through the motes of air,

Perhaps your nerves will find at last

A tone to which they will succumb.

Be still. Be not so heavy-hearted

For a moment. All is not a tomb,

Blind sarcophagus staring dumb, thwarted

Pleasures nailed inside. These fireflies

Sweep their tracings on the evening.

Weep if you must, but board what falls

Away, abdomens flaring—

The brief, nomadic intervals.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.

Poetry for the Esbat: Quiet Moon, 2016

XVII: The Moon.
From Tarot Illuminati by Lo Scarabeo.

"Most Witches are in fact elemental vampires who, according to legend, gain their powers from the moon..." -- The Demoniacal

Several Moons ago, he said to me: "Your recent communications about your relationship to energy made me ponder your Luna devotions as she is traditionally yin and cool, and a perfect ground... so I wonder where she is in your current moment.  You missed your full moon post I think for the first time in a long old ... Not a thing for self-recrimination but perhaps significant..."

Ah, you.

It's so annoying how you know me.

☿☿☿

Throat Chakra Elemental Activator
By Ashnandoah of DeviantArt.

Since I returned from the High Desert, I have suffered from a case of severe communication paralysis, neglecting everyone who doesn't come at me like a freight train or a crying baby.

But the lapse in exercising my fifth chakra began long before...

And I blame most of it on the drought & heat & fires for the lack of fungi because I can see from the record that this is where it all began. Or ended.

(And no, this is not the "Snow Moon," because we don't have any.)

But the Moon, She doesn't bow to climate change, so I have no explanation for the disconnect save for... what? My spiritual web -- is it that sensitive to changes from one end to the other?

Perhaps a spiritual lifeway, as it becomes truly organic -- that is, of the organism -- also becomes much like any other living system itself. As with our ecosystems, our energetic fields, our planetary wellness, etc. -- alter the balance of one thing & watch the mayhem begin. 

It is worth some thought, anyway. 

And so the poetry for this Esbat illustrates my personal bond with the Moon as silent confidant. She is for me, a little bit like a Star to follow, but also a bit of a recent reflection as well. The model Role Model, in so many ways.



Moonchild, by Christopher Poindexter


There was a reason 
that she was so 
romantic about the moon.

It never asked her 
questions or begged 
for the answers, nor 
did she ever have 
to prove herself to it.

It was always just 
there – breathing, 
shining, 
and in ways most 
humans can’t understand: 
listening.



Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.

Poetry for the Esbat: This Cold December Moon, 2015

The Moon
& other cards from The 78 Tarot, first edition.

A squirrely Summer segued into a lackluster Autumn,

a season which robbed me of my muses.

And I found myself strangely adrift

as though I just might need them.

And the Autumn dragged on with a tease, a joke, plus a few more.

Always promises, yet nothing to follow.

Traditions scattering about me and vague weather... 

I waited, but

I couldn't tell when Mother Hulda's night actually happened.

I went inside,

both literally and figuratively

where I found myself preoccupied with many artistic endeavors.

It is ok. It has been very human time.

Somewhere around Samhain, I found myself utterly blindsided,
dismantled,

by Things I thought I was not looking for --

but maybe I was.

Human things. Mostly.

The consequences of this have been mystifying. 
Or something.
And now it is cold. 
Cold in the North and cold here in the high desert.
Ah, how the world marches on, 
even when you are lost in your own.

Tethered to not-so-much right now, I sheepishly return to my anchor. The Lady. The Moon. I have been remiss. Or something.

The poetry for this Full Moon is indicative of the place I found myself -- after I stumbled onto it. A new view. Standing on the precipice of a vast canyon, so familiar, yet completely original. Its curves, swells & hollows beckon me to explore. Everything has taken on a raw, curious caste. Everything looks at the very least, slightly different. 

Before another step, I recheck my anchor & guide. 

This piece from the Poetry Foundation is not about the Moon per se, but perhaps reflective of Her talent for shape-shifting our picture of the world with that uncanny light. Is it there any doubt why we humans have ascribed to Her such an illusory temperament? Oh, how She changes what She touches! Cast in Her glow, the common becomes uncommon. The familiar becomes a stranger & vice versa. Other things -- discoveries, upsets, awakenings -- can invoke a similar effect. Yet there is no falsehood. One's truth is all in the light with which one views things.

Various Portents, by Alice Oswald

Various stars. Various kings.
Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights.
Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers,
Much cold, much overbearing darkness.

Various long midwinter Glooms.
Various Solitary and Terrible Stars.
Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers.
Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars.

More than one North Star, more than one South Star.
Several billion elliptical galaxies, bubble nebulae, binary systems,
Various dust lanes, various routes through varying thicknesses of Dark,
Many tunnels into deep space, minds going back and forth.

Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens,
All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes:
Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk,
Works of wonder and/or water, snowflakes, stars of frost . . .

Various dazed astronomers dilating their eyes,
Various astronauts setting out into laughterless earthlessness,
Various 5,000-year-old moon maps,
Various blindmen feeling across the heavens in braille.

Various gods making beautiful works in bronze,
Brooches, crowns, triangles, cups and chains,
And all sorts of drystone stars put together without mortar.
Many Wisemen remarking the irregular weather.

Many exile energies, many low-voiced followers,
Watches of wisp of various glowing spindles,
Soothsayers, hunters in the High Country of the Zodiac,
Seafarers tossing, tied to a star . . .

Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights.
Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall.
Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of Evening
Blowing the stars towards them, bringing snow.


Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends. 

Poetry for the Esbat: Wherever You Are, There You Are... Moon 2015

The Moon, from The Alice Tarot
by Baba Studio & Magic Realist Press.

Wherever you are, there you are. 

Fortunately, also is the Moon.

I have fallen through the Rabbit Hole again & tumbled away from the precious silent, stillness of the High Desert into the drone of Alaska's largest city...

Why we always do this when the Moon is reaching Her fullness, I am not sure, but there must be some unconscious reasoning at work. No wonder I think of the Moon as transition...

I rose on our departure morning ready for tears, a deep sobbing sadness of cathartic proportions. But my emotional upwelling never came to be, for the demands of readiness & the bustle of preparations stole away the moment. 

I still ache for home & all that the term includes. But particularly this time, I yearn for that house which speaks to me as though I am special.

As I cast a stare at the consistent, texturized walls of our modern, very practical Northern abode, my heart aches for the imperfection & impracticality of that stack of crude yet carefully placed bricks sighing in the desert. Friends & family are mobile, connected -- they can visit, telephone, video conference -- but the house must stay the course. If I could place a phone call just to hear it breathing, I would. 

What can I do, but ask the Moon to keep Her careful eye upon my Beloved? May Her soft, cyclical gaze watch over our precious dwelling, friend, sanctuary & all that surrounds that place -- canyon, winds, barn, shed, corral, trees, birds, soil, mycelia, mammals small & large, the hordes of insects & arachnids... everyone slowly overtaking the place, claiming it as their own. 

I can't begrudge them for having good taste.


And so, on to the poetry for this Esbat. Goethe seems to say it best this round. Bittersweet yet beloved under the Moon. She makes everything better.


To the Full Moon Rising
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Goethe)
Translation by A. S. Kline

Are you leaving me already?
Only now, you were so near!
Cloud-mass shadows you, I see,
And you’re no longer here.

Yet you feel how sad I am,
Your rim still shines, a star!
Telling me how loved I am,
Though my Beloved’s far.

So pursue, now! Brighter, brighter,
Purer ways, with greater light!
Though my heart in pain beats faster,
More than blessed is the Night.


Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.

There's no place like home.

Poetry for the Esbat: "Unto the Hunter's Moon..." (2014)

Demons with cards under a full Moon,
from Patrick Valenza's "Whispers from an Inkwell." 

We can call it many things; The Blood Moon, Sanguine Moon or in my own previous labelings, the Blood & Bone Moon. In more southerly climes, one may still call this the Harvest Moon, but it's already a little late for us in this bioregion. There is snow on the mountains & we wake in the dark with frost coating most everything outside.

There are those who call it the Hunter's Moon & that makes sense to me because I have noticed that the Moose begin to look both increasingly sexy & decidedly more tasty at this time of year. The bucks begin to resemble long legged sausages & the ladies have such great looking haunches that I struggle with this weird quandary of wondering which I want more -- to have a rump & thighs like that for myself, or to gnaw on said rump & thighs. And thus, the Hunter's Moon.

A plump moose buck lounges on Autumn afternoon.

This is also the time of gearing up for the end of October festivities. I have grappled with Samhain plenty, repeatedly even. And last year's Samhain (which fortunately I had no computer to with which to write about it) was such a colossal misadventure, that I am calling it quits on Samhain. Just give me Hallowe'en, please. 

Cards from Patrick Valenza's
"Whispers from an Inkwell."

This Moon's Poetry for the Esbat reflects this sentiment, an embracing of of the fairy tale, the folklore & festivity that is Halloween. This is not the modern, over commercialized, Hallowe'en box-store caricature of the holiday, but the truly spirited cultural celebration of the unknown, the dark places with the safety & security of a shared venture into the theatre of ambiguity. It is about traditions, about becoming what we are not & using that ruse to enter those places we "shouldn't" go... 

It's also an aesthetic adventure, if you do it well. 

And I am not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I am simply quite done with other people's versions of this time when the leaves turn & frost nips & strange spirits venture forth to brush elbows with the rest of us. I am done. No more psychodrama, no more tacky materialism, no more reconstructing of the "ancient past," please. I just want to dive into the celebration, swim deep & revel in each moment.

Cards from Patrick Valenza's
"Whispers from an Inkwell."

With this admittedly old fashioned sentiment in mind, I have found a piece submitted to Harper's Weekly in 1910. I suspect the commercialization of Hallowe'en was minimal at that time (at least the vulgar gore was). The poem speaks to the festive aesthetic, the celebration & the mystery. It reminds me of Palmer Cox's Brownie books which I like to read to the children whenever possible. One of the poem's strengths is that it does not neglect the importance of our Lady Moon's influence in all things Hallowe'en & even mentions the monkier "Hunter's Moon" -- perfect for this Esbat. 

I have also included some images of Patrick Valenza's not-exactly-Tarot deck, "Whispers from an Inkwell" which also capture that olde-tyme feeling, albeit a bit less festive than agonized (a mood generally characteristic of Valenza's work).


Hallowe'en, by J . K. Bangs
Published in Harper's Weekly, Nov. 5, 1910


Bring forth the raisins and the nuts--
To-night All Hallows' Spectre struts
Along the moonlit way.
No time is this for tear or sob,
Or other woes our joys to rob,
But time for Pippin and for Bob,
And Jack-o'-lantern gay.

Come forth, ye lass and trousered kid,
From prisoned mischief raise the lid,
And lift it good and high.
Leave grave old Wisdom in the lurch,
Set Folly on a lofty perch,
Nor fear the awesome rod of birch
When dawn illumes the sky.

'Tis night for revel, set apart
To reillume the darkened heart,
And rout the hosts of Dole.
'Tis night when Goblin, Elf, and Fay,
Come dancing in their best array
To prank and royster on the way,
And ease the troubled soul.

The ghosts of all things, past parade,
Emerging from the mist and shade
That hid them from our gaze,
And full of song and ringing mirth,
In one glad moment of rebirth,
Again they walk the ways of earth,
As in the ancient days.

The beason light shines on the hill,
The will-o'-wisps the forests fill
With flashes filched from noon;
And witches on thier broomsticks spry
Speed here and yonder in the sky,
And lift their strident voices high
Unto the Hunter's moon.

The air resounds with tuneful notes
From myriads of straining throats,
All hailing Folly Queen;
So join the swelling choral throng,
Forget your sorrow and your wrong,
In one glad hour of joyous song
To honor Hallowe'en.




Blessings & delight to you this Esbat, my friends.

Two Days of Mail

The last two days of mail gave me pause to wonder... just what does this say about our household?

Day 1: Cards from Prague: The Alice Tarot.
Day 2: Shroom: a mystery gift from a kindred spirit.

Special thanks to the mystery mailer. 

I'm sure you know who you are. It took me a moment, but I do too.

Super Buck Moon: Just Me & My Boys.

Preparing for the Buck Super Moon.
Drying goose eggs. Just the usual weirdness.

We spent much of the afternoon preparing for this Super Buck Moon to rise. Drying eggs, polishing elm branches (Ulmus pumila), shaving manzanita tips (Arctostaphylos patula), trimming black locust thorns (Robinia pseudoacacia)...

It's all part of the weird-work we do.

When Her Time was Right, She rose up, over the rocky crest, into the clouds...

Buck Moon Offerings.

Offerings this time seemed to demand volumes of liquid-fire -- a bowl of vodka with a splash of Chambord. (What is it about Spirits & spirits?) Italian hazelnut chocolates & four sticks of that strange Chinese incense. Not the usual protocols... make it all strong. Very strong. (Like Her namesake?)

Buck Moon Reading.

The children & I paused on the steps under the Moony cloud cover to draw cards by candlelight. No supplemental light would have been necessary had that sky cooperated with Ms. Moon. But clouds are fickle creatures, particularly in the High Desert.

One card each, right out of the satin & velvet bag, no spreads -- just keep it simple. Auspicious messages all around. I read them each a short interpretation in the heady mantle of incense which hovered about us -- where went the Wind?

Finally, to the tent, to spend our second Night under the great gaze of the Moon & the starry cloak of beauteous Nyx. 

In the thick of the night, when silence falls over everyone, even the crickets, sometimes the Coyotes (Canis latrans) "howl." If you have ever heard this, you know that "howl" is an inadequate word because their voices do not resemble dogs or wolves in the slightest. They shriek & cry like ghosts. Every time I hear their haunting songs I have a moment of confusion -- what IS that? This night I wake to the deafening silence, only a single errant cricket can be heard. What is wrong with him? Then, from the North, an otherworldly shriek. A rejoinder comes from the South, then another from the East. They are playing at call & response across this corner of the Valley, here at the mouth of the canyon. I feel both blessed & haunted.

We wake early, ensconced in our tent-turned-roaster, baking in the Morning Sun, unzip the tent to greet Breakfast Canyon, the Bovini & a new Day.  

Moon watching from our tent.

Poetry for the Esbat: Maybe Moon, 2014

XVII: The Moon (& others) from The Lost Tarot of Nostradamus,
by John Matthews & Wil Kinghan.
This is a curious deck which significantly, contains a Suit of Moons.

Maybe it is, Maybe it isn't.


Llewellyn calls it the Wind Moon. 
That makes sense in our desert bioregion...

Here in indecisive Alaska, it seems it might be the Soggy-Except-When-I-Think-I-Might-Snow-Again Moon. Is it Spring yet? Maybe. Maybe we will just call this the Maybe Moon.

A Witch told me that he heard from another Witch who said she heard it from some other Witches who heard it somewhere out in the world that this Moon is very significant to those who believe in the merits of certain ancient prophecies. This was news to me. I am told they call it the Blood Moon & that this is the first of four which are indicative of the END. Or something. Maybe.

Nevermind that this has happened before with no noticeable effects. But, let the dooms-dayers believe what they want to believe... after all, I choose to worship the Moon & Night & Her children among Others & isn't that just kooky too...

And I prefer to put my stock in the prophecies of science fiction writers who, it appears, thus far have the better record. Too bad.

So while we humans are all predicting the END, or not. I will share an incredible piece of poetry written by Welshman Mark Tredinnick. Tredinnick is a former lawyer & book editor who holds both an MBA and a PhD from the University of Western Sydney’s School of Social Ecology as well as numerous awards for his poetry. He is a founder of ASLE-ANZ, the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment & spends much of his writing time exploring "the attachment to place as well as the intrinsic qualities of landscape."

I have had this piece saved in my Poetry Foundation app (yes, I have an app for reading poetry, on a phone, which is all SO terribly sci-fi...) for over a year now. I read it from time to time, but it is a bit hard on my feelers. This is a challenging piece. This is an extraordinary piece. This seems to me to be the most appropriate response to this first Blood Moon & this stuff about the END that I could ever conjure. So here it is.



Red Moon Eclogues by Mark Tredinnick


I
Every year the moon inches away from us. In time she’ll swim too far out
to anchor us at our habitual angle to the sun, and that will be the end
of the well-tempered and recursive wildness
                                                             that conceived and suffered us,
and that will be the end of us. We have just two
billion years to thank her for our time here. Eternity has a use-by date

II
But it’ll be up long before that, and in the meantime,
I sit on the cold step of the cowshed and watch the world throw its shadow
on the moon like a horseblanket;
                                                             in the meantime the moon reddens
in the refraction of all our dawns and sunsets, in a kind of transfigured cosmic
smog. An apocalypse that lasts three hours until it’s time to go to bed.

III
And in the meantime on the floor of my shed, blue planets sing in the hands
of children as they once sang in war. Two small worlds forged to cry terribly down
like creation unravelling upon one’s foes now
                                                               make a peaceful clangour on my secular desk.
One spins from its orbit and quakes and chips its cerulean shell on the floor
of heaven. The tectonics of play. We are loved like this, and this is how it ends.

IV
I’m arguing a lot with death these days. And last night I found myself
in court poised to clinch the case against the absurdity of life.
Certainly, this was sleeping and certainly
                                                            I was dreaming and I’d been losing the thread,
but all at once I saw where my argument must run, and I was running it there
when my small boy cried and woke me and I went to him and now I’ll never know.

V
Spring now, and the river has drawn back her bow. The lark ascends
from the cd-player, and black ducks sip brown ditchwater in the yard.
Everything’s in bud or leaf, last of all
                                                              the silver poplars and the Osage Orange,
trees flaring even now in the backyard of the childhood of my friend, the poet,
the poet’s son. The world happens twice. Draw the linen string taut and shoot.

VI
One lives in paradox. Debussy plays; trucks flounder past like gods
who’ve lost control of their machines. In between one makes one’s life up.
The sound is the price you pay for the sight
                                                             that meets you every morning and half
of what you paid for the house. The shed puts the perfect sky in her pocket,
and possums rut in the roof. Eternity is in rehearsal, and this is its soundtrack.

VII
Brad mows an acre an hour. A general at ease on his machine, a banker
in overalls, he’s rationalised our small republic on one tank of gas. And this now—
cutgrass at four o’clock—is how
                                                              hope smells. Some days I can see no way out:
the body of the world in entropy. But today I sit among the ruins
of the afternoon, and I cannot see how it can’t all go on forever.

VIII
Meantime the moon has made herself new again, and there has been rain.
The Marulan hills, which had almost forgotten the taste of the word,
are spelling green again this afternoon,
                                                             and there’s water in a lake that’s been a paddock
for a decade. Three black cockatoos, and then three more, fly over as I take
the southwest road. And into all this panoply of hope, the new moon falls.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.