I sing of Wildwood -

I sing of Wildwood
of the writhing serpentine roads of poetry
who grow not only apples, but pomegranates and stars
that spill through me and carry me to the holy isle
of the mist gleaming spiralling pathways
of a myth
wholly alive
wholly within the world
making love from the inside out
and yet cast out
into another place, an other time
where hang upside down the sworn spirits.

I sing of Wildwood
of the fallen company whose mouths are fed honey
by those living through remembrance and power
in sabbatic rapture we fly
from shipwrecks and colonies
into polluted air, dancing
with the haunted memories and hungry ghosts
of a thousand million spectres lost.

I sing of Wildwood
the cunning forests and icy ridges
the fire-bleeding mountains and cavernous labyrinths
the crow-filled fields forgotten
the cliffs and thickets
the thorns and roses
of witch’s castles
of the Lady’s bower and the Devil’s people.

I sing of Wildwood
and the old covens
who braid their secrets into rhymes and prayers
into stones and ceilings
into the chambers of hearts
in which the secret names are written
whose cathedrals our many candles glow within
whose communion is eros and silence.

I sing of Wildwood
of the stone circles and the promises we pledge
over radiance and cloaked in night
as the dare is evoked into the wind
and into the skin and bone
the texture of home
the blessing of return
of coming back
again and again.

I sing of Wildwood
of the virtue of lands lost to my ancestors
and yet within abide
and carried in the body-flesh-book of my being
of stars whose agency anoints us
with a fate foreign to empire
blasphemous to invasion
layer-down of lies
of the cradle-grave of corpse candles
whose serpent eggs
distil alchemically
the bounty of what was brought
and what is sung
and what is desired
what is longing
for this feast of witches
for this gathering of stones
for this marriage of kin
for this compass of tomorrow.

Wildwood sings us
through us
in us
a song of fierce power
that binds the worlds together
as they break apart and flower
because of love. x