When I Am Fifty

I am turning fifty this year, and have been thinking a lot about what kind of fifty year old woman I want to be. Because self-transformation is the most important empowerment I seek for in the Old Religion. Witchcraft is the way I choose to get to the wisdom I need to change myself from the character of the victim in the patriarchy's story, into the author of my own, true story, because as I write it, so it shall be. All modern witches know that, and all and poets too. I know it, I know the magickal power of the words we write. So I am very deliberate when I write that on my fiftieth birthday I want to wake up and find myself free at last from the sadness, liberated from the old grief, divorced from all hopeless situations. I want to be returned to my spirit path, inspired and awakened to the new age, to all the new possibilities for creativity, in the company of the Sacred Grandmothers and my children too, deeply rooted in this world, but able to reach into the past and the future for wisdom and guidance too. I want to return to the Tarot, read more books, drink more wine, and to never again loose sight of the moon. When I turn fifty I will put a pink streak in my hair, I will not care that this one doesn't love me or that that one cannot see me, because I will love myself, I will see myself. When I am fifty I will cast the circle, welcome the spirits, light the candles, burn the sage, and state my intention: Let me be happy, and may it harm none.

Because I Can

It is late at night, the family has gone to bed and the house is silent except for the tapping of these keys. Outside my window the cicadas sing softly and constantly in the branches of the old pines and palms and I write in a poor attempt to sing along with them. They don't hesitate and ask themselves, am I singing well enough, am I singing the right song, is my song as good as the songs of the others, is it as beautiful is it as valuable? They just sing, with all their hearts, all through the night, until the day breaks and the birds take over. So I come to this blog in the same spirit, my intention is to write like the cicadas sing, with all my heart, without comparison, judgement or fear. Not all night, because I am a woman in need of sleep, but just for this moment, For no other reason but because I can. The black sky wheels around me, Earth hurtles through space in silent stillness, yesterday's flowers are returning to dust and I am returning to myself, word by magic word.

Sonnet for the Moon

Sonnet for the Moon

I feel like I have lived a thousand years
I said to moon when she was fat and full,
when she grew dark I knelt and bled my tears
from wounds called eyes into a silver bowl.
I poured them down upon the plum tree root
as she went waxing through the midnight sky,
and though I never heard the drum and flute
I was young again and given wings to fly.
I saw her hanging with the midday sun king,
she never tried to make me understand,
nor did she ask for faith or blind believing
when eclipsed I couldn’t see her reaching hand.
moon, he’s gone, I cried, and fell upon the earth,
yes, she said, but death is mother of rebirth.

Happy Harvest Moon

Another lovely full moon, some have called it the Snow Moon, I will have to give the full moon in October in the Caribbean another name, I feel to call it our Harvest Moon. But whatever we call her, she is at her zenith tonight and the time is good for magic of the most powerful kind. I can feel the earth energies stirring under my feet, I can hear new poems in my ears, see them emerging onto the page nice and concise and simple, all of them spells i cast or that are cast upon me, all of them together drawing me into a ceremony that gathers up the earth powers of healing and transformation and regeneration and directs them to all those places in the heart or in universe where there is injury, hunger or pain. I'm shining up the altar tonight, polishing the pots, the chalice, the old candle sticks, floating flowers in the water, lighting every candle, I will bless the house with sage, drink tea, and when the family is asleep, I'll see what I can write. Tonight is the night I've been living all these years to live. So let me live it well and have a happy Harvest Moon.

The Sighting

a good view

white crown pigeon
in the pigeon plum tree
she was not there to make
the crab grass garden
prettier for me,
she was not a gift from God
sent to reward
my poetry,
nor had she come
like a voice or a beating drum
to tell me
something that could save me.
she lighted on the leaf,
back turned to my childish grief,
there to eat
red palm berries,
to drink
from the green cup
of the palm’s heart,
she of the wild wings,
silent in the highest branches
of the same old
fabulous canopy
was there to get a good view
of the journey home.

Spell-Work

I Had to Laugh

I saw the hummingbird, gold and brown,
green throated angel bird miniscule jewel
come looking for hibiscus saw the striped
lizard jumping a stick the white leg of something
protruding from his lizard mouth, I saw
bees flying in and crawling all over
shepherd’s needle flowers growing in a patch
underneath the bougainvillea, the white flash
of a white bird flying down the road, passing
our house fast as light, the silver dove
vanishing behind an impossibly thin branch
of the old saffron tree, sun loved me
kissed my face, my hands softly burned,
sky was wheeling and when the hummingbird
flew over my head and away she was singing,
I had to laugh, whoever heard the voice
of a hummingbird?

The Beautiful Refusal

The Beautiful Refusal

become the poet
just for the sake
of the beautiful refusal

do not go silently
into that disappointment room
just because
your daddy built it
where you will exchange
visibility
for promises
of protection

those who demand your disappearance
never keep their promises

speak yourself
into plain sight

write yourself into the story
of your life
and tell it to yourself

the mirror they stole
word by word
retrieve it,
restore to it
a reflection you are happy
to own,

fight when you have to but then
let wars give way
to worlds you made
and live within them

exist
(create)
just to piss them off
(and they will
get pissed off,
the bastards),

let them know
you are there,
this
is the invisible woman’s
best revenge.