Incantation for Tomorrow
1/4/21

I dressed my candles with Rosemary oil,
lit the incense and drew the circle.
The Wand flashed in the air.
The Sacred Sage healed and cleansed.
I rang the bell and called the spirits –
demons and angels – I didn’t care –
whoever wanted to do the job would do.
I intoned the litany of change and power.
I danced with the ghosts. I played in the fire.

The rings of the grandfathers sparkle
on my fingers – the diamond,
sapphire and gold, treasures from long ago –
They talk to me at night
and tell me how things will be.
The rings are never wrong.
They cannot lie nor would they want to.
I press them against my temples
and they fill my head with visions.

I let my long hair down to the center
of the earth where it takes root
and I become a tree, and the birds nest
in my hair – the dove, the hawk
the crow and the sparrow.
I open my veins and water the earth.
We came here to bleed.
You don’t get a medal for that.
It’s just the way it is.

I got out my old guitar and played
“the secret chord that David played
and it pleased the Lord…”
Well tonight, it’s talking about pain
and redemption, cruelty and loss.
The guitar is talking about walking away
and leaving things behind. It’s talking
about compassion and mercy,
kindness, embrace, forgetting –
It sings of these things a lot –
of getting free, of getting out.

The old guitar plays the times of power
when we were young, immortal,
invincible, when we changed everything
and the power was with us.
That time is gone but the old guitar
remembers the songs, and she wants
to play them tonight for their power.
She sings my word into the night air.
My word is hope within dread.
She sings of power and I curl like a snake
around the resolute sound.