There is no moon goddess menstruating her way into our spiritual lives,
no chants or cauldrons, no stew to conjure and pour in the streets,
no knife to make ready, no wand to wave through the enchanted air.
Things have changed. The animals retreat, the trees, they shrink away
and there are no broomsticks, no spell books, no Secrets of the Cloak.
But something remains in the ceremony, the provoking and the knowing.
There are no goats to hear laughing. No pilgrims stalking the fields.
No wolves to protect the silence. No needles needed, no candles lit,
no altar on which the old ways stand. No parchment and also no pen.
No Salisbury or Avesbury. No snakes in the mounds. No stones are made round.
No collective breathing together. But the fever remains, the cold white heat.
Still something remains in the water, stirring unchanged by historical science.
Ritual spirit melt pool of hot gel that burns
by the water bathed in the blue coin's light.
Is the candle enough, the whispering idol,
or the closing of eyes, the looking behind,
to appease the unseen, unfelt and unreal
or is something missing, some lost
holy herb, some sage of old knowing,
some talisman, a feather with stone,
a feather in water, the burning of paper,
the words on the paper lost, burning with waxing?
The old way could not have ever survived.
The others are no where, no longer nearby.
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