Samhain, A Celtic Winter poem

Samhain is the Winter Quarter season of the Celtic Calendar. The months from 1st of November to the 31st of January, it is the period of reflection, of remembrance of ancestors and wise old elders in our lives; it is the hallow-tide of all souls passing, the releaser of pain, the hollow of the winter twilight. It is the contemplative season of silence and stillness.

Lady Nyo

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 there has been a
kindling in my soul,
the heart opened, warmed
and the juiciness of life is
more than in 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 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,
legs thin banners
streaming behind white bodies,
lost against a snowy sky.

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

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2012
from “White Cranes of Heaven”, Lulu.com, 2011