[Issue 2017.42]

‘Witch Moon’, Colleen Anderson

Illustration © 2017 Cécile Matthey

---

We are witches, women all
women worshipping the moon
every moon watching timeless wisdom
wisdom revealed in ritual and dance

To the ancients there were secrets
shells pried apart to reveal
women round and pale as the moon
cloistered and then used

In women there are mysteries
the changing mysteries of the moon
the moon unveiled in our faces
faces sculpted from knowledge and birth

Priests tried to dike the moon kenning
and what a woman’s body knew
drained of herblore and inheritance
lands annexed by church and state

Bound with the earth yet lifted by the moon
we bathe in the moon’s silvery soothing light
a light that does not burn but shows the path
a path that any can follow unconcealed

Built high on righteousness, pyres
scourged all but fear
But a tide as red as blood broke through
wills and voices undammed and surging

The full moon returns healed and whole
We cannot halt this transmutation
inevitable phase of the moon
We wake under the full moon’s glow
filled and brimming, witches all

© 2017 Colleen Anderson

[Issue 2017.42]

Comment on the stories in this issue on the TFF Press blog.