Yule blessings
Dec. 25th, 2009 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summer_jackelMuch merriment to all.
Christmas Morning 2009
On Christmas morning, I woke late, comfortable and alone
with the thin fox-point of my dog’s small head beneath my hand,
soft in the knowledge of solitude and the memory of dance.
We walked forth, five dogs and I, into a cool morning bright and tender as April. Passed beneath young redwoods, through the fine old bay-laurel grove.
These five or seven broad trees branching like oaks, grand and established on their bit of dappled ridge, their thick leaf litter blooming with mushrooms.
We walked into the sunlight,
falling around each other lightly in the green, tender new grass of December.
Above the bluffs, in the place trees break to meadow, vultures circle.
In this bright morning still soft with remembered fog, one leans close with her easy, broad-winged grace,
each feather on her strong brown back edged in gold. Down she dips below the dark edges of the trees, then to lift upwards, framed by the distant fog, the bright sea.
There are others. Down in the canyon, something has died.
Standing here watching them, I imagine it to be myself.
There was so much that isn’t anymore, and I can almost feel it; the soft, damp earth
sharp beaks, soft feathers. Tender stalks of fungus rising ‘round.
And I laid down in stillness and in peace.
Let them have it, let all feed
And what is done go back into the ground.
May none hunger on this night.
Last night in other forests
I stood before the woman with her dozen tall, pale hounds
Her dozen silvery and light-moving wolves flowing all around us.
Met her sad gray gaze.
She’d tucked a spring of holly into messy, dust-colored hair. Her shoulders were all sinew, and her jeans were torn.
Remembering her light touch upon my eyelids, I look out onto this clear morning
And let the endings fall away on dark, gilded wings
Almost glimpsing her faint smile as their figures melted into dark green shadow
As my dogs’ heads raised in polite and wary recognition of her own.
The puppy wheels around in damp meadow grass; already
he is almost at his full height, the tall, elegant blue collie once imagined, young and handsome.
My aging wolfdog touches him tenderly with her muzzle as he asks to play
and we turn around to walk back home.
Christmas Morning 2009
On Christmas morning, I woke late, comfortable and alone
with the thin fox-point of my dog’s small head beneath my hand,
soft in the knowledge of solitude and the memory of dance.
We walked forth, five dogs and I, into a cool morning bright and tender as April. Passed beneath young redwoods, through the fine old bay-laurel grove.
These five or seven broad trees branching like oaks, grand and established on their bit of dappled ridge, their thick leaf litter blooming with mushrooms.
We walked into the sunlight,
falling around each other lightly in the green, tender new grass of December.
Above the bluffs, in the place trees break to meadow, vultures circle.
In this bright morning still soft with remembered fog, one leans close with her easy, broad-winged grace,
each feather on her strong brown back edged in gold. Down she dips below the dark edges of the trees, then to lift upwards, framed by the distant fog, the bright sea.
There are others. Down in the canyon, something has died.
Standing here watching them, I imagine it to be myself.
There was so much that isn’t anymore, and I can almost feel it; the soft, damp earth
sharp beaks, soft feathers. Tender stalks of fungus rising ‘round.
And I laid down in stillness and in peace.
Let them have it, let all feed
And what is done go back into the ground.
May none hunger on this night.
Last night in other forests
I stood before the woman with her dozen tall, pale hounds
Her dozen silvery and light-moving wolves flowing all around us.
Met her sad gray gaze.
She’d tucked a spring of holly into messy, dust-colored hair. Her shoulders were all sinew, and her jeans were torn.
Remembering her light touch upon my eyelids, I look out onto this clear morning
And let the endings fall away on dark, gilded wings
Almost glimpsing her faint smile as their figures melted into dark green shadow
As my dogs’ heads raised in polite and wary recognition of her own.
The puppy wheels around in damp meadow grass; already
he is almost at his full height, the tall, elegant blue collie once imagined, young and handsome.
My aging wolfdog touches him tenderly with her muzzle as he asks to play
and we turn around to walk back home.
