SAMHAIN – A Celtic Winter Song

Dark mysterious season,
when the light doesn’t
quite reach the ground,
the trees shadow puppets
moving against the gray of day.

I think over the past year
praying  for a
kindling in my soul,
the heart opened
and the juiciness of life is
more than the loins,
a stream of forgiveness
slow flowing through the tough fibers
not stopper’d with an underlying
bitterness
but softened with compassion.

This season of constrictions,
unusual emptiness,
brittle like the dried twigs
desiccated by hoar frost
just to be endured.

I wrap myself in wool and
watch the migrations,
first tender song birds which harken back
to summer,
then Sandhill cranes,
their legs thin banners
streaming behind white bodies,
lost against a snowy sky.

They lift off into a middling cosmos,
while I, earth-bound,
can only flap the wings of my shawl,
poor plumage for such  flight,
and wonder about my destination.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2009

Tags: Celtic, destination, Forgiveness, freeverse, poetry, Samhain, Winter