FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

© by Jillian Blume/Noctua


The air plumes off the frozen trunks,
ripe with oxygen. An underground stream
raises its voice at the border of our land.

Wind chimes the upper shining branches
of the ice-encased trees
on the summit of Fire Tower Hill.
They bend, dripping and singing.
Then fog flutters across the plateau
like a woman who will not be caught.

At twilight, starlings invoke
the amber alchemical light,
which unravels earth’s carapace.
It kindles the ice-streaked granite shoulders,
and the ice-wrapped thistleweed,
draping heavy hair on the earth.

My tongue becomes a lover’s kiss.
When I close my eyes our edges blur.
We become something lighter than bones:
two crows who dance at dusk
across the canyon between cliffs
amidst the ancient flutter of bats.

Because the Owl is my Ally
I can see in the dark.

In the deep woods
by the fire’s embers
where there is no shelter that is human-built,
we dip below the surface of our words.
With our teeth and bare hands
we tear the roasted flesh of snared birds
and sweet grease glazes our lips.

Then he steps toward me
and lifts his straight limbs,
I face him married and 
anonymous across the fire pit.

Some nights the intaglio of expired blink on the azure pregnant belly of our world
flooding my mouth with the taste of blood.

Generations of bones
are planted in the field.

Cows feed off the liquor in the pond.
There is a rumor
the farmer has let the bull into the pasture to mate.
If we are lucky we may walk trembling through the dew-wet grass,
we may touch the fertile horns.
At this hour, when men sprint across the pastures
they are silhouettes, they leave no footprints.