Aradia

Upon an ancient wood I came,
lost in fading light,
in search of warmth, of hazel flame,
to cloak me through the night.

From the heart I heard a moan
come creeping on the air,
compelling me in tongues unknown
to seek the unseen lair.

Released by dusk, a firefly
danced a secret code
of woven thorns that led me by
the long enchanted road,

beside a stream where bluebells made
rebellion in their shoals;
where long forsaken ghosts, betrayed
by reason, washed their soles.

At water's edge I stopped to drink
but could not slake my thirst.
By raven's caw and owl's blink,
I feared the woods were cursed.

Leaning tired against a tree,
I saw a bloodstained moon
which, once upon a reverie,
departed all too soon.

And then, with eyes of lucent green,
she stood before my view:
"My love", she said, "where have you been?
I've waited long for you."

Her hair deep black, her skin was pale,
her lips of cinnabar,
recounted such a grievous tale
of love's ill-fated star.

Then from those lips a cantrip fell
and conjured from the ground
a host of ivy in a swell,
which wrapped my limbs around

and bound me to a dreaming oak
till I too was entranced.
I felt her voice and fingers stroke
my senses as we danced

and birled although in ivy chains
her prisoner I stayed,
until the golden muted strains
of dawn's reveille played.

Then pointing to the east, said she,
"I'll quench the rising sun,
if you would stay in thrall to me
till fire and air are one."

"The spirit you desire to keep,
desires to be free",
I said, "and never more can sleep,
till sand soak up the sea."

So, with a final gesture of
her hand, she closed her eyes;
and plumed and winged me as a dove
to climb the cool blue skies,

to ride the breath of Autumn's sigh,
to wonder and to yearn -
this chain of being to untie -
and only then return.