Black Crow

Black crow balances
On a gusting breeze
Floating on an air wave.
Feathers, controlling ailerons
Lift and rise
Tendrils rippling
To keep the bird aloft.

An innate symmetry.

Black crow and his environs.

Damaging gusts

Attempting disorder,
Threatening disaster,
But with a mere wing dip,
An unconscious feather ripple,
Black crow rights itself
Restoring the natural balance.

To continue the search

For those not so lucky.

October

Tousle-haired harbinger

Teasing the last remnants

From an Indian Summer.

Next years buds

Vestiges of growth

Belie the destitution

That November will bring.

Beyond, under frigid skies,

The wrecking months.

Skirling winds

Bitter, twisted tendrils

Seep through gaps

Chilling bones, until,

Desolate and alone,

They whither and snap

Like dry grass

Blast-stripped, brown

With cold and decay.

Amidst the carnage,

She walks.
Barefoot.

Autumn

In a chemical reaction

of chlorophyll degradation,
The Goddess tires of growth,
adding yellow and ochre
to smother her pallet of greens.

Oak and beech,
Ash and birch,
the foliage loses its tinge,
taking on the stark flash
of Autumn

A transition of life-giving leaves,

to a morbid crunch
and a display of unintended colour.
Yellow to reds and browns,
lacking real purpose,
creating a psychotic vista.

A promise of death,

the spectre of decay,
withdrawing the living sap;
protection against
the harsh embrace
of Winter.

In Between

Her heart lies amongst the greenery
pulsing through the filaments.

Shoots pushing up through rotting mulch

sap bursting in a lithe climb to the light.

Life through death.

A partial demise

hence to a renewal.

And in between,

during the icy clutches of Winter,
a dormant phase.

Yet she remains,

even in those mortal depths,
poised for rebirth.

Glimpsed in the seasonal berries,

crimson red,
filled with her life-blood.

Or on the Robin's breast,

while he sings of her coming.

Merrivale

Man-hewn menhir
Woman-strewn circle stone
 
Standing alone as ages pass
proud against a bleak horizon
steadfast before the deluge
stone island within a moat of tears.

Four-fold face
directional but unturning
casting a shadow
the only moving part.

Placid tranquil accepting
open wanting and fluid
the circle can be entered
from any direction.

Standing erect
looming over the cleansing circle
the shadow reaches out
but never makes contact.