1.
wood-voice, I must pass on
for nothing here knows me
but
the fog along the ridge of pines
the crow’s song - a tunnel I pass through
sweet other wilderness,
you have formed in me
a marriage bond of blue-depth waters
dreaming,
the wolf is
illuminated
her hoofprints like arrows
through fields of fern and mortal dusk
destroyed by the impossible,
I live the impossible
walk with me
through the leafless arms
of twisting hawthorn
the blood of a birth
saying,
let no one make a fool of my heart
and keep what is yours
mask of the animal
I am
sharp as the black, wounded
hearts of brush and black thistle
forgiving my old life,
those past tongues and lands
I walked
and wasted
my words demand the silence of
this moorland
where crossroads vanish into
moon’s silver brume and lapping edges
a thousand tender leaves swaying
night’s likeness
no name, no body,
my becoming speaks
through the pursuance of nowhere
forget the voice of distance,
those that would take your spirit
for ransom
the irremediable, the unredeemed
hums that which you must leave
as we go through the ruin becoming
sublime
2.
wood-eye weep
in the deep shadows
of your longing
others will hum in the soft patter of
your broom
trodden by the tenderhooves
of wind’s armored riders
the sweet sea of silver miles
enslaved by an ancient tenderness
to stay
remain, endure
beside you,
I keep a despairing vigil,
no longer finding refuge
in my thoughts
that old labor,
lost
to the furrows of a dying field
all that you see, all that can be
taken away,
is unspeakable
a mask over the animal I am,
nightbirds stretch and blacken
the horizon
timeless doors of earth,
where will you lead me?
failure remakes a creature,
I am not yet born
the story bleeds
beneath the dying weight
of my master
the hunter tracks his prey
through you,
your heart grows darker
for the dying things,
the wasted and forgotten
black stagnant pool of
blue-dark depths,
all is heavy with the spirit
of illness
everything I am waits for you,
and still you do not come
love, the color of oblivion
lost to the waters
of other
wood-eye weep,
sing of distances,
the living notes of painted birds
forgive me,
I let you go
mouth of the river sings
back to the sea
the world is [not] alone
3.
moon, tyrant of the sea, may the tides be her bedding
the witch-tongue her means to speak
& the umber-furl of pine’s spectral mist
her hair to tangle
unfathomable nightbirds shed
their tears of the Estranged
where voids ache in the empty air
come to me, the lilies spill
from the mouth of mourning
infinitely into every distance
I am changed
buried in the dark movements of beloved
the unwritten laws of water
shadow-bringing master, I took, and was taken,
I had to touch, and hold, all that was not mine
a hunger that did not belong to me
Selene,
I see your pale restlessness in a sky of thieves
you are like me,
gone, unsung, forgotten
made to wander over the sea
where the fine-boned wind breathes
hold me to my name, the kingdom of wheat
and the shore I belong to
press the old-woods to your lips and draw meals,
bleeding silver sideways into marshland,
the dark human waters
of mother
already, I am part of you
4.
at the gates of the otherworld, I came
as human
I begged to descend
the eyes of mine, shadow-bringing,
too many dead and buried
drifting the empty miles of death’s river
night, I say, I have come to meet you
here
by her sea-grave
I have with me, time I have hoarded
and bundled like wheat
the woes of a raven
above black waters & sweet other
wilderness
the red taste
of betrayal
twilight washes over the mire and tires there,
in the witch-shade of your hand
let me in
once, I was wild with hunger
but the brume rose and I thought,
I cannot stay here
and waste my heart
being all that you do not want nor need
there is a nobility in solitude, in staying, or leaving,
and suffering
fate of the irremediable, shuffling and lifting and loving
the sound
of my wings
forgive me of my old lives,
tonight they walk out from me,
coming out from the shadows
away with their dark horses
they are gone
I
descend
small, infinite,
far away
full of time
that will never return
to where breaking & darkness
are the only powers
you know of this, deepest world,
the infinity of deserted blue, blushing fruit,
incomprehensible moon
call me by my true, and animal name
all I love in this world lives beyond us
5.
coming up from the underworld
I recovered a lost language,
animal-tongue,
the endless dance of water
sailing through the notes
of a lyre,
illusion
too much I had wanted,
too much I gave up
it felt anything but holy
solace of night sky,
the hardly moving face of time
I am alone
the night is errant,
a wounded place
the stars
like the torches of horsemen
riding in
to every distance
the yellow-eyed light
of a darker fear
why should I be
forced to remember?
creature, dressed,
undressed
earth tells her: return
here is your sorrow
the red curve of a seamless sea,
open with the thousand eyes
summer’s streams
the deep privacy of a wood
where spirit horses drink
how sweet the night now seems,
how silent
stirring the lilies
with a lingering white dream
the infinite within me
Eleanor Gray is the co-founder and editor of Figroot Press, and has had poems published in Bird’s Thumb, Hypertrophic, Lit Cat, ArLiJo, Mangrove, Rose Red, Seen & Heard Journal, and Cosmographia.
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