witch/druid

[brightrosefox]

This is a lovely, lovely, soulful poem that every pagan should read. I find that it speaks most clearly to the Druid in me, since in the philosophy of Druidism, nature itself -- including all elements -- is one of the most powerful deities known. Slightly different from witchcraft, which is less a philosophy and more a practice. Many pagans who see that I'm a witch and a Druid scoff at me for it, since apparently you "can't be both witch and Druid." But this poem speaks something for everyone, I think, and it doesn't matter who can't be what and why I can't be two things at once.

Catechism For A Witch's Child
When they ask to see your gods
your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird's wing
tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open spilling
streams of molten ice to earth
and tell them how you drink
a holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your mother who never taught you
death was life's reward
but who believed in the earth
and the sun
and a million, million light years
of being
© 1986 J.L.Stanley