mythography | The Torch and Key

I learned this weekend that a poem I wrote titled “The Year is a Wheel” received an honorable mention for the annual Northwind Writing Award, sponsored by publisher Raw Earth Ink. I am honored that my poem received this distinction and will be published in their forthcoming Northwind Treasury, a print version of all winning work and honorable mentions.

You may see the full list of winners here.

Here is my poem in full:

The Year is a Wheel

September brings harvests and metamorphosis
Sustenance and the ticking of death
The leaves change and begin their slow, colorful march
towards decay and a winter’s rest

The leaves know their time is nigh
They sing their mournful dirge night and day
By shapeshifting from yellow to orange and to red
until the hour of decay

As the nights grow long, winter is creeping
The breath of the Cailleach caresses our skin
The leaves are at rest in their boneyards of memory
Buried in snow with their kith and kin

The longest night settles upon us like a cloak made of feathers
We kindle the hearth fire
Singing songs of ice and longing
For the first fruits of the earth’s desire

Winter marches on, an icy drumbeat in fallow land
Beating in rhythm with my heart
The days wax longer
As the winterscape turns to colorful art

Persephone is rising from her slumber
Honey dripping from her pores
Bud, blossom, and leaf
The hag of winter then closes her doors

The earth welcomes the Green Man, the mystical Horned God
His blood turns to wine as it sings and thrums
Amid wildflowers and honey, we lovers embrace
Our breaths and bodies dance to the fiery beat of his drums

The days grow ever longer, until we reach light’s peak
A climax that leaves one breathless and aching for more
The Oak King dances with the Holly King
Until one kneels, yielding on the moss-covered floor

The Holly King triumphs in his seasonal battle
The drums of Autumn resume their withering beat
A slow, melodious march towards death
An unbroken cycle evermore repeats