Fall Equinox - a reading (on YouTube)
At the equinox the morning light changes from summer to winter, soft, slanted and slightly shadowed. Yet deep within our concrete canyons and tamed suburban jungles, we still dream our lives away.
The white faerie stirs her cauldron beneath the Harvest Moon as blind men feed the fire that keeps the brew alive. Each lanced boil of inspiration shrouds the world in deeper poetic mystery. She reads from the Black Book Carmarthen and lulls our souls to sleep.
Adrift in her hypnagogic fog, we shout garbled messages between our ship and shore. We strain to hear the crash of waves, praying we are guided toward safe harbor rather than lured by will-o-the-wisps onto a rocky shoal.
In the parkland beyond the breakwater, trees uproot to walk and fight as men, their arms barren as their leafy armor falls away. Winter's breath strips their flesh, revealing narrow limbs that beckon like long, bony fingers in the shadows of the moon.
Along the path within that rocky wood, we find a polished pewter mirror, its surface reflecting an ever shifting triad of maiden, mother and crone. As the wind penetrates the forest, the stagnant pool ripples to life. Tiny waves of black and gray reflect the sky above. Fey voices whisper from the shadows, drink not deeply from the roadside pool. In raindrops there are wisdom, in draughts a fatal poison.
Overhead, the sky looms like scales on the belly of a great, gray snake dripping clear venom directly into the minds of its victims below. Come morning, its tears turn to shafts of silver light that pierce the Cimmerian clouds, a rain of arrows from heaven, a storm of spears from the afterlife.
We awake to find another year and a day behind us, our memories stolen by a mischievous boy who somehow infected the enchantress' womb. His contralto words echo from the dreamscape like tiny, silver bells, beautiful yet incomprehensible. We can only hope to gather them like the first fruits of the harvest, quickly capturing their luminescence before our ink darkens upon the page.
Such is the gift of Ceridwen's inspiration at the equinox, fleeting and evanescent. Enjoy her magic before the memory fades like the gloaming astride midsummer's piercing light and the deep darkness of midwinter.
The white faerie stirs her cauldron beneath the Harvest Moon as blind men feed the fire that keeps the brew alive. Each lanced boil of inspiration shrouds the world in deeper poetic mystery. She reads from the Black Book Carmarthen and lulls our souls to sleep.
Adrift in her hypnagogic fog, we shout garbled messages between our ship and shore. We strain to hear the crash of waves, praying we are guided toward safe harbor rather than lured by will-o-the-wisps onto a rocky shoal.
In the parkland beyond the breakwater, trees uproot to walk and fight as men, their arms barren as their leafy armor falls away. Winter's breath strips their flesh, revealing narrow limbs that beckon like long, bony fingers in the shadows of the moon.
Along the path within that rocky wood, we find a polished pewter mirror, its surface reflecting an ever shifting triad of maiden, mother and crone. As the wind penetrates the forest, the stagnant pool ripples to life. Tiny waves of black and gray reflect the sky above. Fey voices whisper from the shadows, drink not deeply from the roadside pool. In raindrops there are wisdom, in draughts a fatal poison.
Overhead, the sky looms like scales on the belly of a great, gray snake dripping clear venom directly into the minds of its victims below. Come morning, its tears turn to shafts of silver light that pierce the Cimmerian clouds, a rain of arrows from heaven, a storm of spears from the afterlife.
We awake to find another year and a day behind us, our memories stolen by a mischievous boy who somehow infected the enchantress' womb. His contralto words echo from the dreamscape like tiny, silver bells, beautiful yet incomprehensible. We can only hope to gather them like the first fruits of the harvest, quickly capturing their luminescence before our ink darkens upon the page.
Such is the gift of Ceridwen's inspiration at the equinox, fleeting and evanescent. Enjoy her magic before the memory fades like the gloaming astride midsummer's piercing light and the deep darkness of midwinter.
© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III
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ReplyDeleteNotes and asides:
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Ceridwen, also known as the white faerie, is an enchantress from North Wales in medieval legend, a goddess of wisdom and poetic inspiration in Welsh myth as recorded in the Black Book of Carmarthen. The young boy who infects her womb is reborn Taliesin, perhaps the greatest Welsh poet. His manuscript preserves the Battle of the Trees, an enigmatic Welsh poem about trees are brought to life as an army by a sorcerer.
Ceridwen was suggested to me as a better Celtic interpretation of the witch or the crone than I have used before. I freely admit to bending many Celtic and Germanic myths, legends and archetypes into shapes of my own choosing. For me, it is all about the imagery and the interplay of words.
Cimmerian means dark or gloomy. It originates from Homer who first used it to describe the people who inhabited a land of perpetual darkness. Brings a whole new meaning to Conan the Cimmerian.
Hypnagogic means inducing sleep or related to the state of consciousness just before sleep. I was looking for a word to describe that twilight time when I ran across it.
The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the fall equinox. All the full moons throughout the year have names, though this is the best known.
A few of these lines I poached from a series of daily lines I wrote three years ago in the fall. But they seemed to fit where what was already taking shape. Nothing ever goes to waste.
Picture notes:
ReplyDeleteA picture Karen took of the Harvest Moon over St. Petersburg ten days ago near moonset/sunrise. She merged two exposures, one to get the city and lights, the other to capture the details of the moon.
You got in 'hypnagogic' as you'd mentioned. 'Fey' was the word of the day recently on dictionary.com
ReplyDeleteNicely done.
I've been watching the sky change from early August and noticing the tale tell signs of the earth shifting postions: Orion was coming up in the east at 4:45a, when I am leaving for work. Then I noticed the shadows changing in the places I walk; areas that where exposed to direct sunlight were beginning to be covered with shade. At 5:05a this morning the sun slipped passed the equator and will not return to this side of the world until March. Love this season.
A couple people tell me their dictionaries get a workout with these posts. I never know which words to explain and which not to. My thesaurus and I have have a good working relationship. Same with my dictionary.
ReplyDeleteSince I've been writing eight messages each year, I've paid closer attention to the sun and the quality of light. Down here, we don't have the same startlingly different seasons that most people are used to. There are subtle changes that many people don't find the time to notice. Although, I don't get to watch the progression of the stars as much as I'd like, either.
I look forward to the day when we can open the windows again. I always feel isolated in summer. I miss the sounds of nature. Autumn is the time I recharge and reintegrate.