i. Winter
I sleep the winter.
ii. Spring
Nightly after their murmuration, they come down to me, & lead me to the shadow court of Jack-of-Gold, the corvid king: this night, to the patch of dust and moonlight where they say I was conceived. They tell me their stories of my life, bright eyes unblinking, then wait. ‘Sing’ they whisper, ‘sing your song’. But I have no song to sing. Again they wait, then fly, laughing: ‘Not tonight, my love, not tonight’.
iii. Summer
I have seen knots done, though being thus, cannot myself do them well: when such, rope becomes more than rope, to hold each bucket high over its own deep spring. I knot these words to lift the summer sky a little higher over the land, and make my way home, to my warm burrow and the berries I have picked from the low branches, up on the greening hill; and all the honey from the hives.
iv. Autumn
Autumn has touched the soil. Its gold rises through the finest filaments to edge the leaves over us. Leaving my burrow, I am already rising. Everything rises, everything asks the same question, quietly, of what remains in these late September days.
I sleep the winter.
ii. Spring
Nightly after their murmuration, they come down to me, & lead me to the shadow court of Jack-of-Gold, the corvid king: this night, to the patch of dust and moonlight where they say I was conceived. They tell me their stories of my life, bright eyes unblinking, then wait. ‘Sing’ they whisper, ‘sing your song’. But I have no song to sing. Again they wait, then fly, laughing: ‘Not tonight, my love, not tonight’.
iii. Summer
I have seen knots done, though being thus, cannot myself do them well: when such, rope becomes more than rope, to hold each bucket high over its own deep spring. I knot these words to lift the summer sky a little higher over the land, and make my way home, to my warm burrow and the berries I have picked from the low branches, up on the greening hill; and all the honey from the hives.
iv. Autumn
Autumn has touched the soil. Its gold rises through the finest filaments to edge the leaves over us. Leaving my burrow, I am already rising. Everything rises, everything asks the same question, quietly, of what remains in these late September days.