Dwindling Daylight

Dwindling daylight, dark by five.

Bore down to root-glow, petals returning

to the seed, prayers withering into meditation.

If you kiss your shadow at this time of year,

something ignites. The Feral Lady,

single mother of the dawn hour,

will visit your secret chamber, the space

between the self and its knower,

where new worlds ring in bejeweled blackness.

What you call falling, she calls the dance.

What you call the wrong note,

she calls stunning harmony.

You say "mistake," she says "creation."

By Springtime, her musk

is on the heather, blood on the moss.

"I return," she says, "when you return.

If you choose me, I have already chosen you."

She visits all the bistros on this road,

The Crown, The Heart, The Coccyx.

Once at the Inn of the Unspeakable

I saw her face beneath the shimmering veil

of absence, sequined with stillborn moons.

I felt her dagger of silence slitting the throat

of my name. All my drowned questions

floated like corpses on her gaze,

and I became a river of stillness, sweeping

old stories into the abyss of now.

She lured me like a selkie, down

into the oceanic bulb of her golden poppy,

this cauldron of transfiguration,

where She changed the dark heart of my flame

into sap, into the terrible sweetness

that does not need to breathe.

Now I know that wherever we are

is the Tavern of Awakening.

If you meet her there, mention me.

Tell her I remember.

See if she smiles.