All Hallows Eve

Hallowmas altar

Hallows

Dear ones
Your mute voices clamor in my ear
Thin fingers pluck at my hem
Your dry tears clot my throat
I bear your unquiet loss.

I light the candles
I call the directions
I bring the flowers
I keep the faith, the waste, the plaint
I give the breath, the blood, the bone

It is for me to write
Your untold stories
But the ink runs out
I write words with air.
I carry you and I lay you down

You are dust now
Shades that flicker behind my eyes
This body has its own riddle to solve
Rest you now. Rest.

In the dim light, at the dark moon
I tarry at the crossroads
Wrap my holy heat close
And dance in all the worlds

– Cari Ferraro

Cauldron

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{ 9 comments… add one }
  • Julie 10/31/2016, 11:46 pm

    I love this poem, Cari. It is so peaceful. I always feel privileged to know you.

    • Cari 10/31/2016, 11:57 pm

      Thank you dear friend.

  • Laurie Doctor 11/01/2016, 6:01 am

    Lovely to hear and see your poem here Cari, thank you. I love the way you carry us, and have us pause, in relation to the celestial movements and the seasons.

    • Cari 11/01/2016, 8:12 am

      Thank you, Laurie. The poems seem to arrive with the turning of the Wheel, sometimes. Then I feel “the wave in the mind” as Virginia Woolf called it, which “(apparently has nothing to do with words) and then, as it breaks and tumbles in the mind, it makes words to fit it.”

  • Carol Pallesen 11/02/2016, 3:31 pm

    Greetings!

    As always, lovely words from a lovely lady.

    Happy upcoming Thanksgiving,
    with love, Carol

  • Bee Smith 10/31/2017, 3:18 pm

    Love this poem. It captures the thin veil of this night.

  • Bee Smith 10/31/2018, 10:48 am

    This is even more poignant a year on. Rest now with them tonight.

    • Cari 10/31/2018, 11:12 am

      Thank you Bee. I realize now that this is actually two years on. Just a measure of how long I have been working with ancestors and story.

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