Sunless Morning v2

The morning of the 26th of September

all of the frost was in my teeth and hair.

I had it out the night before with a witch

who claimed to turn hawk's tails

into animal souls and sodden cardboard into their bodies.

The nightwinds blew into howls
as she leaned her crooked back against

a big birch and sang to leaves as they fell.

I had my hands around a dead branch that had fallen

as she flicked her gnarled fingers through the air.

I kept saying This is Nature!

this is nature

not your stodgy incantations, frump

she just smiled and continued loosing letters

into the waning light of the moon.

              This a fortune told
              now this is a spell 

              of some substance 


A talisman she held

above her head and thrust into the bark:

orange wire wrapped around the notches of a cross,

the cross with a loop, copper and steel:

the ankh came from her fingers 

and stuck into the tree.

Cross a witch as she gilds a spirit and it will follow you.

The pine marten switches feet as it hops across the dirt,

I've been still, watching from the window a sunless morning,

watching as it hops along, tracing frost through soil

and leaving snow amid its tracks.

Ritual

Happy as a swale he climbed to the sandy peak and cast eyes to the sweetwater sea before him. The sun was setting on Lake Michigan equal in spirit to his eyes as they followed through wave and spray and gas and dust. Sixteen gulls wheeled through his sight before the Sun met its end beyond the horizon and each one had its feet lifted to its body. The zooming gulls caught light on their wings and swore to the moon as it lifted itself up beyond the layers of vapor. Several stars peaked through abating fill of rosepink clouds meager at their edges, more moderate nearer the moon. The first brightest light met the eyes as a vision filled the mind, suddenly, the visage of Mars appearing glow-red. As rosy fingers gave way to blue nigh dark the breeze carried smoldering pine boughs to the mouth and nostrils, pleasing memories. Turning to see deeply above, he fell back to antiquity glinting from the stars gazing down to him and the fire he had made. Stooped over a dry stake prodding fire with his neck crook'd to the sky as before and before and before man had done to see.  The guiding light below his feet cast for fortunes and dreams, the ones above for fate and season.  Perching as he had below the night above the sweetwater sea with fire at his feet, a timeless ritual glowing around and in him