The Great Year: Age of Virgo, c. 13,000 - 10,800 B.C.

September 2016

The Age of Virgo

(c. 13,000 - 10,800 B.C.)

The months begin
and are like winter,
always longer than expected:
five months of winter, so you
long for it to end;
consider it
a time of rest and quiescence,
a time to turn inward:
add drawings to earth walls
white as fields--
grass brown in the cold,
and then disappearing beneath
more snow;
fields that are
austere,
the soul's condition
in winter.
The moon
cold and white
as earth,
it is also woman
round and open
unfolding secrets
of existence, repetition
of birth and death,
seasons, tides,
sunlight and moonlight,
planting crops,
bears hibernating
in caves, snakes
in a crevice,
deer's antlers
on the forests' floor:
this is the time
of silence, of
the soul's gestation--
at night
we see stars
moving in the sky.

Dream Journeys: "Psyche's Night Journey"

1.

Grandmother’s home has wood paneled walls
and a claw foot bathtub beside the stove in the kitchen.
I weep regretting I hadn’t returned sooner or more often to visit her.
On the second floor daylight enters at the wainscoting;
on hands and knees I pull a piece of wood
from the wall behind an antique table,
there is a crack along the wall
where a wooden beam lets in cold air.
Later, walking along a narrow path
someone has dug through the snow
in the street, I see a man
walking in the same direction
watching me.


2.

At the bottom of the front stairs
at Grandmother’s flat,
there is a blue clock
which no longer works;
a key to wind the clock
is in a little black drawer beside the clock.
Upstairs everything is very plain and in proper order.
Mother is staying there and I ask her,
“Did Grandma leave any messages for me?”
Mother is annoyed by the question,
she says because of all of my questions
she regrets I came here.