Thursday, April 23, 2015

This Just In...

Greetings, Faithful Readers!

My hiatus from posting is now (mostly) at an end.  At long last, this year's issue of Agora has been published, and I am happy to say that two of my submissions were accepted, one of which I will share with you now.

So - enjoy!

 +JMJ
On the Wayside
By Caitlin Clancy
Copyright 2014

To my mother

On the crest of a bare vermillion hill
Bathed in bold breeze, wind’s breath like thunder
Gold in the glow and red thereunder
He fastened his purple cloak asunder
And took the wind like wine

Full fair of face and flushed in cheek
Standing like the brazen gods of old
He wore his purpose, a priestly cope
Eyes blazing and blue, burgeoning hope
With an ice that refused the cold

From that earth-proud brow he strode below
And knelt at the wood-hewn shrine
And he thought upon the waves that laugh
And the mysteries of the world, and Bath
And the heathen praise that was a calf
Gold that is all too fine

The figures’ wood had stilled their gaze
But yet their eyes with tears seemed raw
Her night-blue cloak long rain had faded
And the God-child’s whiteness no traveler aided
But both as one seemed too poor to be raided
The last sign Njal’s race saw

Power-carved hands clutch at fiercer face
His memory is pain
For they who strew maiden’s death and run
Took the fine filly-mares black and dun
Baptized and blessed and given by none
Save the sacrament of a grave sun

He wept then and was not ashamed
But for his countrymen’s curse and their vibrant sin
But still he thought the Child looked on him
And the Lady softly smiled

He remained as still and wood as they
While the wind buffeted, dried his face
And he knew the lot of the Northern blood
The last of those who fled the Flood
The bane of Adam’s race

Rising then there rose with him
A dignity restored
No more the fearsome living death
With dragon’s fire and demon’s breath
Could cloud one from the line of Seth
The third of Adam born

Down the sea road he strode again
Back to the ships that sway
But first he rev’renced his Mother dear,
And her God-child at play

Soon came the wind-night and swallowed them all
Into soft, velvety maw
The shrine in the white of Diana’s ray
Saw the ships go with the passing of day
But still he looked back through the dawn-mist grey
For the faded blue that he could almost say
Was deeper sapphire than the woodless way
On this, his Mother’s day.