in those october evenings,
i began to walk in the deep
dark wood,
for hours
and hours.
i returned a
changed woman;
a banshee,
with witchcraft upon my lips.
i sleep no longer;
i wake each night
in a cold sweat,
hearing the wailing of horses
and the speaking
of wind-bound tongues.
i walk the dark forest
in a trance,
dragged by an unseen
unworldly
thread, tied to my hip.
red moons rise over
the darkened prairie air
and i gaze into the eyes
of animals that leave no tracks.
they are watching me.
they know what i am,
fallen dark
watching my body.
the wine dark night sky
crashes upon me
these autumn nights;
and suddenly
i am salem's daughter,
my ashes burying
themselves
into a darkening soil.
some people are born
and some people die
but i cannot move
through this threshold
without feeling
the weight of thousands
of hallow's eves-
that feast of revelry
and torch-stained cornucopia-
and the sounds of gallows
and swinging nooses
from oak trees.
my house once burnt down
but i can't remember where
and was it me,
that scorched picture
in the river?
was it me
they found
with feet
like slaughtered fish
at the river,
dead from running
all the night
from the sound of men
and wolves?
as a child,
i died in my dreams
and could tangibly,
actually,
feel the living bodies
of those i'd already buried.
as a child,
i gazed up into
that hallow's eve sky,
and i began to hear the voices.
they never stopped.
i am no longer
a woman you have met before;
i am a haunting of your old heart,
contained in a sky, suddenly darkening
a wind stealing into your lungs,
and the leaves of
a deadly and beautiful embrace
and i am known
only from the quickening
of hooves
and drums
and winds.
YOU ARE READING
Meet Me in the Woods
Puisiassorted poetry inspired by nature, family and the life of a person who spends far too much time in her head. (sexuality, death and decay are alluded to or directly addressed in some of my poems. these poems are marked by "*" in the chapter title.) ...
