THE SHADOW - OF LOSS

Honey smoked wood of Egypt
Turned on a lathe of time
Glossed by oil of a thousand hands
Tear cured in a vat of brine

On the other side of nothing, I,
Sit plaiting barren words
Weaving futile tinctures of light
And counting wood
Dichetal do Chennaib

Hang your harp in the tree, hang yourself, one eyed man
For what wisdom is worth in the end
Bite the apple, bite the sky
Both will turn to wormwood in your mouth
Bitter as gall in Gilead

If I tore my throat with a Valkyrie’s wail
Would it buy a cup of comfort?
To what end this eternal spinning
If it will not weave a piece of gauze
That will staunch this heartsblood flow?

The Banshee brings a rattling coach
Wood for a lychgate or bier
I see the darkness, hear the pain
Where is the fire for the Phoenix?

Shears and knives and scythes of steel
Wooden handles wear-sanded smooth
Who will teach my frozen fingers
To make a simple knot?

Smash your loom, hang it up with the harps
In this vast branching bentwood of Ash
There is no cup of comfort
No spiders lace for this monstrous pain
Save time
And what comfort is time?
The ravens gather with hungry eyes

So I whisper to the wind that moans through severed strings
Of harp and of loom and of heart
I am here
Helpless incapable powerless
With nothing to offer
I am here

He spun in the wind where the ash tree stood
A Wise Man in a dark, blood spattered hood
The spinner said, ‘tis understood
That in the end, it all comes to wood


©Edwina Peterson Cross