A Poem for Samhain

A Book of Leaves

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Atlas of the Dead

come see: how quietly they move through the stones.
parchment fingers rustling their leaf tambourines.
the dew is on the grass. their feet, in all their wanderings, do not touch.
they float above the earth, or dissolve near to it, into it.
their compass rose is of the greater earth: these leaves fall through them.


Disperse Into Twilight

still silence before the storm: premonition
of the desolation of salt marshes.
forest of crucifixes. the writhing.
lamp that recalls the last ecstasies of moths:
light, guttering, lifting, remember his hands.


Bonfires To Leap

burning, cascading, futons chimneyed with fire.
bitter brush, uprooted. trapped wooden serpent roots.
graduate degrees in the design of balefires.
trapped sunlight released: stand-in for the green flash.
re-cycle of mineral, root, and vapor. water returns.

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Previous Samhain entries: here, here, and here.