For my sisters
A poem + preamble
Earlier this week, here in Athens, we were experiencing all the winter that we have missed for the past three months. It was witch weather: wild winds from the north, flashes of lightning, long rolls of thunder and torrential sleet and rain. The mountains that I usually look at from my windows disappeared behind screens of opaque cloud and, when they did appear, their tops were frosted with snow. Removed as I am from the heart of the city, I could see Lykavitos, Filopappos and the Acropolis loom ghostly from the mist, like ships at sea. Everything was damp and cold and grey, but it was no less beautiful. I love the city in all her moods: adorned with spring wildflowers on every patch of waste ground, scorched in the blazing summer sun, kissed by the autumn wind, and these past few days - lashed by weather from a fairy tale, from the Ramtops. When I was out walking in all that wild weather, I half expected to hear the thump of Baba Yaga’s cauldron, or hear the Lords and Ladies sing.
On nights like this, normal people would pull the covers over their head, sensing that there were times when the world belonged to something else. In the morning it would be human again; there would be fallen branches, a few tiles off the roof, but human. For now… better to snuggle down…
Lords and Ladies, Terry Pratchett
It is this edge place, between myself and the city and the wild, that inspired me to write this poem several years ago. Like everything I write, I feel that it came out more twee and less me than I meant it to, but hopefully when you read it, you’ll get a flicker of what that edge place feels like.
For my sisters
Ancient forest,
Tree trunks gnarled and twisted,
Branches leaning down to hear your secrets
Or to tell you theirs.
You draw sustenance from the Earth like roots,
You are free like the falling leaves of autumn,
Your love is evergreen like the pines.
Dryad, wood elf, guardian of the forest,
Have you forgotten who you are?
Lonely shore,
Stars strewn across the sky,
Restless waters ebb and flow eternally,
Whispering your true name.
Your blood flows with the phases of the moon,
Your breath moves with the waves of the ocean,
Your body is made from the stuff of stars.
Moonchild, stargazer, daughter of the deep,
Remember who you are.
White city,
Ancient stones under the sunshine,
Hazy mountains, endless blue, bare rocks
That know your soul.
Your hair moves in the perpetual breeze,
Your heart beats with the hearts of your myriad sisters,
You are broken and beautiful like the holy places.
Maiden, mother, enchantress, wise woman,
This is who you are.
Liminally yours,
K