Sings to Coyotes

Running with the Deer

2009-02-12T17:09:00.000-08:00

There has always beena great doubt in my mind
that I was ever meant to be domesticated.
I feel out of my time,
soul-sent to run with the deer
in a time when the deer
no longer run free.

And I find myself in the wrong world,
haunted
by memories of long-striding runs
across the glitter and crack of moonlit ice on the hills,
Gaia’s bare bones, looming black above me
against the star-deep sky.

Memories lie deep in my mind, yet flicker and rise
in unguarded times, a part of me
always feral and free, not to be
chained - and the older I am, the grayer I get, the more
I remember.

Copyright 2009 by Jessica Macbeth. All rights reserved.

56

2009-02-12T16:36:00.000-08:00

If I were an owl, flying high,
what would I think, what would I think if I
saw me* dancing, dancing
high on a hill, alone in the dark,
under a star-filled sky?

If I were an owl hunting for mice,
so crunchy & sweet,
what would I think, what would I think if I
heard me singing, singing
high on a hill, alone in the dark,
under a star-bright sky?

'No moon! No moon!' I might cry if I
were an owl, 'She can't be a witch
for there's no moon,
she's too many clothes,
she's got no broom,and she can't fly!'

If I were an owl and I heard me sing, singing a song
in a tongue unknown, I would sing too,
and my wordless song would come echoing back
from the nearby hills to me dancing, dancing
there on the starlit track.

If I were an owl, soaring high, what would I see,
if I saw me: A fat old lady in too many clothes
(it's cold enough, tha certainly knows)
doing her thing, with a light-full heart,
under a star-filled sky.

*If you are confused about who is the owl and who is 'me'
I can only say: you are meant to be.

Copyright 16 October 1993 by Jessica Macbeth. All rights reserved.
First printed in Crann Beathadh, November 1993, then again in Earth's Daughter, 1994.

I Give You Fair Warning...

2007-08-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

When I grow old, really old,
I shall be eccentrik.
I shall wear long silken skirts
that sweep in the dust
and keep Abyssinian cats.

I shall speak clearly to the cats, of course,
but to other people I shall speak
only in symbols, codes and cryptograms,
and let them think
that they understand.

I shan’t knit.

My garden will be wild and rich, and
I shall plant tall stones
in suitable places. I shall make
potions of flowers
and light, and
I shall keep bees.

With my knobby old knees
and sagging breasts, I shall
dance naked under the Moon,
and I shall sing to Her
with the cats.

I shall carry a blackthorn stick,
and frighten small boys away from my apples -
they'll like that -
and I’ll tell tales of the goddess
to small girls so they will know
who they are.

I shall say outrageous true things
to people, and make waterfalls and small pools
in wild places.

I shall have a deep, deep well
of silence
in myself, and it will fill
with the love flowing through me
like a wild underground river. My hair
will be very white and unmanageable -
rather like a dandelion.

My roots shall grow to the heart
of the Earth, and the horned god
will be
a personal friend of mine.

4 February 2007

2007-02-04T16:38:00.000-08:00

Silent Songs

Old man Coyote...
no words -
only a song soaring
over the hills.
Me though,
even the songs
are silent
for now.

Coyote Stone

2006-06-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

This is a small black stone, a focal point in the Worldweb,
a node of light—earth magic that can be carried in one hand.
Shaped by the hands of shamans, it is imbued by them
with their wisdom and power and it carries its own
integral wisdom, earth-knowing.

Out of a valley of death it came, carven with lines of power,
this small piece of black basalt called a ‘talking stone’—
repository of the wisdom of an ancient line, heritage of shamans. It teaches the mysteries of healing the earth and her children
and of the evocation of power.

This black stone, calls unto itself those who serve.
Its holder in now-time offers me this stone to touch,
to learn what I may. Before touching, I center myself,
feel myself rooted in the earth, know myself whole
and cradled within the Source.

Taking it in my hand, there is nothing, darkness
as black as the stone itself. I call the Master of the stone,
the archetypal indweller, guardian and dispenser of its power,
and I find myself in the world of the stone,
within the stone itself.

This land is scoured bare by wind and sun—
only the rocks and the earth live.
It is a twilight world of sun-below-horizon,
neither day nor night. In this not-light not-night
I see a figure before me.

Seated on living rock, he is dark, sinewy, skin the color
of old burnished copper, like the land itself. His face,
his head is that of Coyote—the wise one, the trickster,
the old one. He grins his feral grin at me, ears cocked,
alert, listening.

Casually, he tosses the black stone that we are within)
from hand to hand. What can I say to such a one as this?
I can only wait before him. He weighs me in his own balance—
a measuring incomprehensible to me.
I am not of his people.

Yet, I am a daughter of the Lady,
the Great Mother, priestess among my own,
and therefore to be considered, to be weighed
for an eternity in this place without time.
I wait.

Suddenly, he stands closely, so closely before me,
wild eyes, deeper and darker than starless space,
filling and holding my eyes as he thrusts
the black stone into the center of my heart.
For a timeless moment we are still

His hand is in my heart’s center, I do not breath.
Soundless thunder roars, resounding through me, echoing
into my past and my future. He vanishes,
leaving me within the stone, the stone within me.
And it calls to other stones in my heart.

They are murmuring their secrets, their mysteries,
to one another across the reaches of time and space
within me. Graven with spirals and marks of power,
visible and invisible, there are stones within my heart—
earthstones, heartstones.

There is the heartstone of the Lady of Callanish,
the keystone of a vaulted chamber at Maes Howe,
sacred and swept by northern winds. There are the cairns,
barrows, megaliths, and the living rock of places of power—
earthstones in my heart.

They speak to each other and to me
on levels too deep, too real to comprehend,
and I sense powerful forces moving within me.
The earthstones speak to me, and to each other,
wordlessly.

November 1984
in Earth's Daughter

Afterword...

Days later, I return
to the world of the stone-within-me.
Coyote takes my hands,
places them upon the living rock

of his world, and I see myself
in the world of the stone-within-me,
hands upon the living rock of the
world-within-the-stone-within-my-heart
and
within-the-stone-within-me-within-stone
hands upon living rock,
self within stone within self,
mirrored,
infinite and eternal.
He teaches interesting lessons
that
expand
one’s mind
in interesting ways.

November, 1984
in Earth's Daughter

Scrambled Eggs

2006-06-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

Late
night
hours.
Dis-ordered images
in a tired mind:
serpents
smiling smugly,
acres of Aphrodites
anciently amorous.
Eros on an elephant
haniballing on.
Jungian synapses
firing archetypally.
Words jump fences,
juxtapose themselves
improbably in signs -
teratogenetic
horoscopes of sound
masquerade
as nonsense.
Symbols
of another reality,
by fatigue fragmented,
rise up babbling
in a semiconscious mind.
Chaos
must have been
something
like
this.

Love Grown Old

2006-05-28T00:37:00.000-07:00

At night...

I feel your breath, warm
on the back of my neck
your chest is moving
against my back.
My breath falls
into the rhythm
of yours, slowing
and deepening
as we fall asleep.

In the morning...
my head on your shoulder,
still sleeping,
I feel your breath
quickening, stirring
my tousled hair.
Your arm tightens
sleepily around me.
Your awakening
stirs my breath.
My heart beats faster
as we waken.

All of the nights...
all of the years...
breathing together
sleeping and wakening—

If you were not here
would I be able to breathe?

© 2006 by Jessica Macbeth. All rights reserved.

Red Paint—a true tale

2006-05-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

George was a short, stout man,
Glasgow born, Clydeside bred,
older and slower of body,
but not of mind.

Our peaceful harbor
was invaded by
hard men from the city.
They were having
a relaxing day by the water
harassing an old couple.
Our Jimmy and Jeff decided
to run them off, feeling that
the two of them easily
outnumbered three ruffians.

But Auld George yelled,
"Wait for me!" and they did,
shaking their heads at each other.
They thought they
would need to protect him.

Jimmy had a pipe wrench, Jeff
had a marlinspike. George
picked up a broad paintbrush
and dipped it in a handy bucket
of red paint.

George stumped out ahead,
puffing a bit and trailing
carmine drops, and the heavies
laughed and laughed and laughed
at the fat old man with
the dribbling paintbrush.

From five feet away, George
suddenly
flicked his brush
and filled the face
of the foremost laughing thug
with stinging scarlet—
giving a new meaning to "red-eyed."
The second hooligan
rushed him, shouting. George,
casually stepped aside and
reached up to slap him
across the face with the
still-dripping brush.
Eyes and mouth afire,
he howled too.

Two down,
one to go. But...
that one was running—
he may not have stopped
until he reached Glasgow,
where people only attack you
with knives and razors and clubs—
and there are no
mad old men
with crimson paintbrushes
and happily fiendish grins.

Walking back to our boats,
George glanced at Jeff and Jim
with a sapient eye,
"You laddies need help again,
chust let me know. Nae bother at all."

I was there, I saw the whole thing. Jimmy and Jeff and I all learned something that day:
A true Gael thinks outside the box.
A man of experience is canny.
Nature provides.

Crone

2006-05-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

Her wise, old wizened face
grins up at me, laser-bright eyes
holding me. Like a bird before a snake -
I am fascinated, transfixed.
And she says, ‘You don’t think
I got to be this age
by playing it safe,
do you? I’d have died
of boredom long ago!’

Mother's Day

2006-05-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

The First Night

It is dark in the desert
tonight. The stars are distant and cold
and the moon is dark, her face
turned away. But in an ancient city
bombs fall and bright fire blossoms
on the ground. Tracer bullets
make brilliant streaks in the air.
'Like the fourth of July,'
the newsman says. From far away,
I, too, sit in the dark, listening
to guns firing. I light a candle
and place it front of Kwan Shih Yin.
By its light I see tears
on her face.

***

I wrote this during the first night of bombing Iraq in the Gulf War. Tonight, on this full moon years later, things there (and here) are only getting worse. As I write this people are dying—mothers, sons, daughters, fathers—we all belong to someone, we all are kindred and there is no one outside the family cirlce. We all belong to each other.

Gateway to Avalon

2006-05-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, April 04, 2006
I know where the gateway to Avalon lies
hidden in the mists.
You can't get there from here . . . unless
you are guarded, unless
you are guided, blind through the mists,
by Those Who keep the Way.

Their touch is so gentle,
their whispers so faint—you have to be watching,
you have to be listening,
you must be awake and aware.

You can only go blindly, journey in darkness,
beset by shades that chitter and slither,
touching you here and there. Surrounded
by memories like blood-hungry dragons, we travel.
And yet, all the while,a sure hand guides us—if we trust it.

I know where the gateway to Avalon lies,
hidden in the mist—in the curl of a leaf,
or the touch of the thorn,
the pattern of stone,
the arch of the hill—you have to be watching,
you have to be listening,
you must be awake and aware.

I have to keep watching,
I have to be listening,
I must stay awake and aware.