Author: harrietsams

Today is VE day

The day when Europe glimpsed

How possible it was for

love and forgiveness

To come to pass

My father

A mere babe

Evacuated from London

To Wales with older sisters

And mother

While granddad was a milkman

With a horse and cart

Eltham

They came home to him

To the horse and the milk

Bunting and cake

Kisses from strangers

And so many tears on his toddler head

My son

His age now

With two older sisters

Waiting patiently for peace to reign

For our dreams of love

To manifest and come to pass

And we wait

To step outside the front door

To tears and hugs and joy

And a promise of all we hope for

Societal cohesion

Community care

Ecological restoration

Deep awareness of the human niche

Manifesting our place

For we were meant to have one

And many are remembering

I drew the perfect circle

In chalk

I wish it were permanent

But it is blowing away

As soon as I draw it

Everywhere are

Changes

I mean of the transformational kind

Dandelion into clock

Or

Romantic blackbirds

Into parents

Or mourners

• 

Bare tree into blossoming

Cherry

Into shedder of display

Into bursting with

Fruit beginnings

Daffodils into dying heads

clumps of a has-been

Display that needs to be

Left

Untouched and

Forgotten as we move

Onto the next blissful

Bouquet

Let them return to the Earth

Unseen

To do their important work

Of renewal and birth

Raspberries are coming

But the buds have not even yet

Opened into petals

Yet I am hopeful of a bumper crop

Chalk pictures

Get drawn

A portal of magic

Then scuffed and scattered

Into dust of rainbow hues

Books have changed

From words of promise

Into received wisdom

And I am changed

Change goes ever on;

It is the one

Constant

I put out the carrots today

In a patch of brocolli

Pea and lettuce

On ground we are moving from

A house ours yet not ours

Roots for plants

Meant for our tummies

But what if the carrots don’t grow in time

For us to eat and the

Broccoli flowers

For someone else?

Still I sit

On the old broken chair

Surrounded by the tiniest

Most vulnerable

Shoots

I take my flip flops off

And I breathe in the growth

And love them

Wish them health

To thrive

It isn’t about the end result

Food to eat and abundant

Harvest anymore:

Nurturing

Is about

Love

How hard it is to find something to write

Every

Single

Day

How minuscule and inconsequential

These days seem to me

And why should I write of what we do

When so hard

So deeply

Sit the days for others

For us- apples keep blossoming

And now the cherry blossom

Has finally dropped

And sprinkled the ground with

Spring time snow

A celebration of the marriage

Confetti came from

The Horned God

And his Divine Consort

Bluebells now

Dot the gladed garden

Dandelions

Wild garlic explosions

I sit in the midst of a blessing

Why should anyone read this?

For comfort and knowing

There is a grace in this

I got so burned again

In this unseasonal heat

No clouds

Just sun and blue sky

My skin

So white and soft and usually covered

Cannot deal with the onslaught of

Light

What joy

I can feel the vitamins sucking into my pores

And the warmth

Caressing

Pre-rheumatic joints

Take what you can

Because tomorrow is

Cloudy

So many who catch the skin

cancer

Do not even have passports

Did you know that?

I shudder

And sit

Anyway

What should I fear most?

Malnutrition from no

Northern sun,

Or too much of a good thing?

Daffodil wonders

Why doesn’t anyone take

My photo in death?

Dandelion shuts

And awaits the transition

Into a timepiece

I wonder what will

Happen to us when we leave?

Apple blooms anyway

There is a meadow

Where lady’s smock grows peaceful

Where I walk and smile

Wild magic takes toll

On spirit and body and

I need to ground, Earth

My turn to go to the supermarket

all ailments suddenly inflated

what if my cough is The cough?

I mask up

 

 

 

 

In the supermarket

on goes the mask and a man

asks if they work?

I reminded him about wearing trousers when he

pisses himself and I won’t get wet

He actually smiled

 

 

 

 

The checkout lady

gave me the most heartfelt

thank you

I’ve had for a very long time

 

 

 

The cough hasn’t been

since

 

 

 

 

A Zoom call

again- when will they end?

My arse is getting wide-

and in front of a group of wise women

I appear

 

 

 

 

This time there is no mask

not one.

Vulnerable and kind

generous and wise

we learn

and we are seen

really seen

 

 

 

 

Look at each other- really 

look

I say

Perhaps it’s easier to really look

when there are two screen and

hundreds of miles between the eyes

 

To be seen, masked up and

mask gone-

how the vulnerability

sings through my bones

 

 

 

 

I ran again yesterday

along the old tracks and railway line

I watched my feet go like metronomes

pound pound pound

breathe in

pound pound

out

I saw a doctor friend who said

I am no hero

but you’re amazing

I thought

as she ran home to her children

and I ran on

just to waste some time

A leveret

about two months old

flushed from the hedgerow

by my crazed and delerious pup

she ran

straight for me

and I watched in amazement

and wondered

when is she going to notice?

Right by me,

so close that in slow motion

I could have picked her up

she clocked

and swerved

chased by Pup and me yelling

to a deaf-eared maniac

Mother Hare watched the whole sorry chase

as Baby leapt into a hedge and escaped

Pup came back and passed

straight to where Mother

sauntered through into her field

and she waited

Pup gave up,

found some sheep shit to gnaw

I stood and watched:

Mother had three more babies

serene

safe

they came out from under a little shack

lolloping

smelling the air

chased leveret trusted to come back

in her own time

I suppose

Then two rabbits appeared

tiny

delicate

and my inner kid

wanted one to hold and stroke

not this noisy

boistrous

wild creature-chasing

idiot dog

who eats sheep crap

and then comes up for a kiss

The horror of it

I ran on and found

where the apple fairies live

through a wrought iron gate

(iron will keep them in,

the Victorians thought that

but now we know that those who

wealded the iron

wanted dominion over

those whose protection was bronze and stone

and rose and hawthorn)

an orchard bewalled

and secret

I climbed the wall and

wrenched my shoulder

sorry, I won’t try to look in again

I apologised to them

as you should when they play a trick

to teach you a lesson

the pain left

and I breathed a sigh of gratitude

remembering to ask permission

always

but especially at Beltane

when the veil is thin

but the Elementals

are everywhere

Doctor

hare

fairy

apple

feet

breath

shoulder

crazed dog

I need no more proof

Post Magic:

I am emptied like a discarded shell

no longer do I hold and mystery of growing

in my safe embrace,

that which I held has up and gone

fledged

 

 

 

This is how it is

once the flow of magic leaves me

afterward

I am the empty reed,

the pith pulled out of it,

hollow and empty:

 

 

“I am a spirit,

a word,

a thing of air and darkness,

and I can no more help what I am doing than a reed can help the wind of God blowing through it.”

 

 

-Italiacs from Merlin of the Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart

 

Storm clouds hung

Grey and towering and so so welcome

I half hoped for a deluge

Right in the middle of the ritual

The time for ritual came and on we got

The World Wide Web of internet zooming witches and wise women!

Hail and welcome!

Put your brooms in the virtual corner

Prop them by the door and

Settle into the moment of transition

This is the magic time

And no, I do not say that simply

Time to shed what was once

What had brought us right to the gate

Spring set the scene

For the ultimate flowering

The heat and sweat and hot ankles and soaked dripping cleavage

The grubby hands that pull up food

Herbs and medicine

For the healing of the world

Straw hat and freckled wrinkles

Overhead the apples will swell

And the plums will drop

Like men’s balls on twigs

Dangling right in our faces

For us to pick and suck and

be careful of the stone on delicate teeth,

For not all juicy things are altogether beneficent

Now, though let’s not get ahead of outselves

This is still just the doorway

Not passed through quite yet

We are still with one foot

On either side

I still hold Spring so dear and tender in my heart

For this lockdown has taught me true love

Reverence and devotion

To the burgeoning days I have been a part of

I am not ready to fall head first into Summer

Please, can I not rest a little while before that massive power

Is all around me?

Time is precious and it is flying

Faster and faster

It zooms

Like we wisewomen

Now on our electronic brooms

Connected through the ether

When all is confusion

Be held in the truth of Earth

And Sun

And their eternal dance of love

The deepest magic I want to learn is:

How can I slow down Time?