BLACK WIND

There are nights that pluck at me
like witch-fingers, blood-sisters

I walk restlessly round the room
drink too much, tease, scold, scorn

I may tear something apart – tarot cards or flowers
but my hands are capable of crushing steel and bone

These are the nights when the black wind
flicks stars through the trees like elf-shot

when the black wind glides under my eyelids
so I own night-sight, am cat on the tiles

These are the nights when women shapeshift
fly and alight on a whim like a succubus

naked breasts cold as water, their hair
curled into snakes or spiked raven wings

These are the nights when everything cages me:
your gentleness, our love, the spaces between us

These are the nights, these nights of black wind
when you are best absent, your door closed

while I stay alone with my mirror sisters
watching the wind, the wild moon in my hand.

©Rose Flint

WITCHING HOUR

Tonight the sky is full of watching eyes
as the Ancestors press their faces
close up to the razor-edge that separates
the living from the dead.

At Samhain, there’s a witching hour
when the gates inside the universe swing slowly
open, allowing restless spirits access here,
to haunt with anger, fear and sorrow,

But on this night, when the misty veils
waver to transparent lace, we too can walk
between the worlds and enter the great grey halls
of those who’ve made that final crossing.

We’ll call the Dark Ones - Ceridwen,
and the Nine Morgans – to lead us, lend us courage
as we take our steps beyond the voids of Time
to cross the thresholds of the Otherworld.

We will make the journey with our hands
held out to offer healing, offer gifts
of sweet red apples from the Isle of Avalon,
sunlit orchards sewn with stars’ secret light.

We’ll walk the windswept corridors
of midnight, go stepping generations back
to find the huddled bones of those
whose hurt still resonates in living hearts

and we will freely give such balm and solace
in our kiss of peace. We’ll do whatever it may take
to mend this world’s history, bring fresh hope
to the next seven generations still to come.

©Rose Flint