Autumn, she is loitering down in the market square,
Where they are selling scarlet fruit and golden-tassled sheaves,
Where on the fitted cobblestones there lies a drift of leaves,
And any citizen who looks will see her walking there.
She talks of truth and beauty, and the shameful price of bread.
She laughs at you, and passes you another glass of beer.
She wears a long brown coat, for it gets cold this time of year,
And living sprigs of bittersweet wound round her nut-brown head.
The old and weary gods stop by. She knows them each by name,
For Autumn is a pagan, and is far older than I.
Red leaves, grey clouds, and harvest smells all haunt her heathen sky
For Autumn is a pagan, and I love her just the same.
Spring is an agnostic, and she does not care to know
The names of any firework flowers that bloom around her feet.
She is too young to recognize the homeless in the street,
But smiles at them to let them thaw a bit before they go.
Some days she is a Pantheist: then every bloom is good,
The bees are buzzing hymns, and if they sting you feel no pain.
Some days she is a Buddhist and desires only more rain.
Spring has delight in her heartbeat and madness in her blood.
But Autumn is a pagan, and she is worldly wise.
She is older, she is sadder. She knows everything, I think.
She knows why sacrifice is holy even in its stink,
And she is who I see at night when I have shut my eyes.
Summer is an atheist, loud, angry, unafraid.
When he gets drunk his bitter laughter thunders in black storms.
When he lays down to sleep at last the night remaineth warm:
He gave his word it would, you see, and all his debts are paid.
He forgives not. He forgets not. And to defend his own
He will crush you, or bleed himself, do whatever he must.
He is the very superman. A lusty youth, and just,
And if he fears old age and time, he does not make it shown.
But Autumn is a pagan, and she has a gentler soul.
She knows she did not make the world, and loves more therefore.
She does not rage, she pours another cider draght. Her door
Is open to the cool breeze, and she has my heart in whole.
Winter is a Christian. He is virginal and cold.
I think he thinks the world and I will come to little good,
But still, he keeps good Christmas, as a decent Christian should,
And he will never notice if he ever does grow old.
His are the silenced days between long lone abyss of night.
What hope he has for warmth is faith in warmth beyond himself.
His skin is pale as death, and he has never had good health,
And in my soul I fear him, that he will be proven right.
But Autumn is a pagan, and before the Winter comes
We'll go to the fair together, we will muse on easeful death,
We will work wild useless magic with a windowpane and breath,
We will walk the crimson pathless woods to hear the pheasant drums,
We'll taste the chill blue northers as the sweep the sky above,
And she will be slightly holy, like a quiet household ghost.
With harvest charms, and mysteries, and fair but unseen host.
Aye, Autumn is a pagan, and it's Autumn who I love. |
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theodwulf's journal
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