Wendy Rule's Concert, 31 Jan - 1 Feb 2018

To Andrew

The full moon singer

live on my computer

is in America, next to a mountain.

It's cold there. She is dressed

in warm black pants and jacket,

red beret and hiking boots.

She plans to see the dawn, 

she tells us, after her singing.

Here in Australia, it's midnight.

I'm still in sarong. The electric fans

are still blowing air around my living room.

The sky outside is black with cloud. 

Between songs, Wendy reminds us:

the blue moon blood moon super moon,

Leo moon of creativity and sovereignty,

is present though we cannot see.

So are you, whom I also can't see

except in my mind. When 

did you not celebrate full moon with me?

When did you not watch an eclipse

alongside me? When didn't we 

attend Wendy's concerts together, here

on her visits to this our magical home

under our own mountain?

I know your spirit is with me tonight

as she casts the circle. Here in the South 

it's Lughnasadh, aka Lammas, a time 

of early harvest. I gather up in thought 

blessings that form my harvest, including 

you and the times we had together.

In the Northern half of the world it's Imbolc,

beginning Spring: new life. And I renew.

For Midweek Motif  ~ Moon at Poets United.

Musician Wendy Rule, an Australian now based in Santa Fe, is also a witch who casts circle at all her concerts. You can still find this one on YouTube.

Encountering Crows

Hekate’s birds: I know

when I see three, 

She is sending a sign

and I smile. 

I might be walking

I might be driving.

Either way, 

my black cloak

wraps around me 

etherically,

invisible to your sight.

But they see, the crows.

And She,

through their eyes,

looks and sees 
me.

Written in response to Fireblossom Friday : Corvid and sit a while, day 20 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Image: public domain.

Three Magic Wands

My three wands are magical indeed.

The first was made years ago, by my friend Nedz;

the second was bestowed by Tess and the Universe;

Letitia is now creating my third, which has a special purpose.

The first was made years ago, by my friend Nedz.

She channelled it, using spiral wood that she found 

in the bush and polished, and two amethysts.

The second was bestowed by Tess and the Universe. 

I dreamed of a laser, as wand and athame both. Tess

took me to choose crystals; there was a wand with laser tip ...

Letitia is now creating my third, which has a special purpose.

She has found what is perfect for me in stick and stone.

She will magic it for 'happiness and pure joy'.

Returning Light

Spring Equinox this year is rainy,

the ground outside muddy, and the sky invisible.

But the energy will overlap

for some days after this date. We can still celebrate.

And we plan to! We, the Goddesses

of Shining Light, will gather to dance and share that light.

At the time when light returns to us,

we shall draw it into our hearts and then shine it far.

We gather together to return

to what we are, to who we are, again and again.

We turn to the light, return to light,
turn on the light. We carry the light in our souls.

Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif: Equinox, Equator.

The form is a landay, as described by Robert Lee Brewer at Poetic Asides (but the mood probably isn't).

Some lines of the poem allude to the song Return Again, which is used at gatherings of the Goddesses of Shining Light.

Worlds Within Worlds

I walk the invisible paths

of cyberspace

to a centre of art and poetry.

There I find labyrinths

in poem after poem

answering and extending each other.

Today in the physical space

of the Goddess Circle

we sing and dance and meditate

and walk in dance a labyrinth.

We carry invisible candles, and 

are linked like a thread, hand to hand.

We take our light into darkness,

then retrace our steps,

winding our way back out.

A simple ritual and profound.

The deep core.

The ever-expanding circumference.

At the Project 365+1 blog where I've been a guest this month, someone posted a poem on the labyrinth theme and it inspired others. Then the real-life event described above seemed a wonderful piece of synchronicity, and an occasion for me to write a labyrinth poem too.

Sightings of Crows

Three crows at the side of the road
and a fourth swooping across.
What does this denote?

Put on your witch hat, woman!

Gather your cloak
deftly around your shoulders.
Magic is afoot.

Full Moon Night

No ritual –

black sky and pelting rain.

Still I’m woken at 2am.

All is quiet. The sky

is a little light.

I put on shoes and go outside.

Even my cat won’t venture

out into this inhospitable dark –

she who is named

for the Moon Goddess.

She stands inside the door

and waits. I find no break

in the clouds, no sight

of the moon’s round shape,

no trace. Only,

over behind the palms,

the slightest whitening.

It is enough.

I feel the connection

and breathe deep.


Linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #312

Dark Night, Full Moon

A small full moon, high

in a blackly cloud-covered,

almost starless sky.

Only one point of light,

Mars, is visible with her –

bold, warm and bright.

It is enough. There is peace

inside the womb-dark,

a soft release.

The night makes no sound.

I enter sacred space.
The circle folds me round.

(But I couldn't get a good one that included Mars.)

Linked to Gillena's Monday WRites and to the Tuesday Platform for 24 May 2016 at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Heritage

Through my mother, 

I come from a Scottish isle –

a fey place of warriors and poets.

Through her I come, too,

from a sea coast in India –

town of temples and sacred trees.

Through my father, I come 

from temperate Australian farmlands

and a tiny island in stormy Bass Strait.

Through him, I come from

thinkers and rebels, dancers and lovers; 

and from sober preachers.

Through my own birthplace, I come

from mountains and rivers,

tall trees, surrounding ocean.

Because I can feel and hear and see,

I come as well from an old people

who walk here still, who made me welcome.

Soon is the Feast of Samhain

here in this Southern Land.

To all my ancestors: Hail!

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are invited to answer the question, Where Do I Come From?

Photo of tartan and badge: Heirlooms from my mother. 

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2016

Photo of crag available under Creative Commons licence:

Page URL:

File URL:

Attribution:

Cats and Witchy Women

Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men.

This night was made for cats and witchy women.

We don’t wag tails, we switch and hiss: feline;

deadly as gods, not merely bitchy women.

The fires we light tonight will surely burn

into your brain visions of witchy women

and shadowy cats. They slink and scratch, they turn

against the firelight; restless, itchy women

who rub against you, catlike on your skin,

furry and purring – wanton witchy women.

Oh take the tame Dog hence, that slave to man.

Try the embrace of Danger: richly woman!

Written for Magaly's prompt for day 1 of 'Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month': Has It Begun To Sprout? asking us to use a line from Eliot's The Waste Land in a poem. In this case it's my first line.

Also linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #296.

Photo © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2016. This photo is mine and should not be copied or used in any way without permission. 

This Poem is Healing, Recovery and Light

This poem is an instrument of healing.

This poem is a recipe for recovery.

This poem is filled and surrounded with light.

This poem must be read with an open heart.

You can take it into you, into that heart,

then let it spread it throughout your body.

Now see it extend as a cloak to embrace you.

This poem is an instrument of healing.

This poem is a set of instructions

which you can follow step by step.

Try not to vary the key ingredients.

You want the taste just right, and the nutrients.

This poem is a recipe for recovery.

This poem is soft yet radiant.

It is all-pervasive, but you can direct it.

Look at the colour. It is blueish-white.

Or is it in fact whitish-blue? Ah yes!

This poem is filled and surrounded with light.

This poem is yours, your instrument of healing.

This poem is a secret recipe I share for your recovery.

This poem, if you let it, will fill and surround you with light.

This poem is an example of Hannah Gosselin’s Boomerang Metaphors.

This poem was written for Susan’s ‘Recovery/Healing’Midweek Motif at Poets United.

“Everything in creation, everything in the universe moves in the flow of Light. This subtle Light has a natural stream of flow in your circulatory system. The circulatory system of your body is a river of Light. It is a very concrete flowing fluid, and the Light that is pouring in moves into your system to guide you into the flowing current of new life that is changing your whole physical body.”

–  DivineMotherOnline.net

Eating Wild Violets for Breakfast

After the feast of Brigid

these were left,

some in the glass flower vase

we set on the altar before her,

the rest in a box in the fridge

on a sheet of wet white tissue paper.

‘You can eat them!’ said one

who had gathered them for us,

her smile lighting her face.

 

It is three days later,

but they kept.

I pick up a few, singly,

and place them in turn on my tongue.

Surprisingly, they don’t melt.

I must chew the tiny petals.

Then I scatter them all

on my morning cereal, and eat.

My senses open to Faerie.

I am at once ethereal

and rooted in earth;

more decadent

than Marie Antionette,

yet innocent as a wisp of air

breathed from a baby’s lips.

I thank the Goddess for sharing,

and open my mouth

to speak beauty.

Linked to Poets United's Midweek Motif: Beauty

This poem also appears in Sherry's Poets United feature: A Chat With Rosemary Nissen-Wade ~ On Poetry and Witchcraft.

Night of the Blue Moon

I use my laser-tipped shaft

– a long crystal laser –

wand and athame both.

I cast a simple circle,

no elaborate ritual tonight.

I’m a plain and basic witch.

I welcome the elements,

creating sacred space

in my small back yard.

Even in moonlight

the trumpet creepers

glow bright orange.

The trees bend in

above me; the rose bush

has tight new leaves.

It has been a strange day.

Now I reach night, and accept

that some friendships grow old.

This, though, is constant: me

and the full moon together

in a garden, year after year.

I let the day go, in its pain.

With raised arms, I accept

into myself the moon’s white light.

I draw it down, and use it

to bless the plants and my cat

and the listening nature spirits.

I ask that the world will know

love, peace and truth. I ask

to be strong. And wise.

Linked to Poets United's Midweek Motif: Acceptance

This poem also appears in Sherry's Poets United feature: A Chat With Rosemary Nissen-Wade ~ On Poetry and Witchcraft; and again in her later feature: Poems for a Witchy Halloween, along with poems by herself and Magaly Guerrero.

Sea, Land and Sky

The sea is my mother, the womb of my heart.

The land is my father, my perfect support.

The sky is my roof, and my walls as well.

They all make my home, wherein I dwell.

They are my companions, always with me.

They help me to live, they allow me to be.

They contain me, yet with them I can be free.

They are my companions, always with me.

The sea is my feeling, the truth of my heart.

The land is my body, which gives me support.

The sky is my mind, whose thoughts serve me well.

They all make the person, where spirit shall dwell.

They are my companions, always with me.

They help me to live, they allow me to be.

They contain me, yet with them I can be free.

They are my companions, always with me.

For Poems in April, in 'imaginary garden with real toads', today's prompt is to compose song lyrics. At the same time, for a course I am doing, I was reflecting on land, sea and sky, and the two things came together.

My Black Cat

My black cat,

my handsome black cat,

the perfect cat for a witch,

is named Levi. His other name is

'familiar'.

When I cast

my magic circle

on the night of the full moon

my black cat is with me, and also

the fairies.

He grows old,

this dear cat. Me too.

Sometimes, when the weather's cold

only the fairies dance, by the light
of the moon.

At dVerse Meeting the Bar this time, Tony Maude invites us to try an extended (or expanded) cinquain with one extra syllable per line than the form invented by Adelaide Crapsey. What this version might be called is still being debated, but the term Maudern cinquain, suggested by one user, is proving popular. Although Tony himself feels it would be arrogant for him to use it. I have no such constraint and am adopting it forthwith. This poem is a sequence of three of them. 

Completion

On being asked to write about what this date, celebrated as 
Halloween (which is based on Samhain) truly means to me.

Tonight

I would light a candle.

I would stand it

beside your photo.

Tonight

I’d recall

the daily rituals

of our time together.

Tonight

I’d set a place for you

at our table.

Tonight we’d feast.

If it were truly Samhain

here in the warm South,

that is what I’d do.

However, it’s Beltane.

The hot, hot summer

is coming. But

the way we ushered it in

my dear, is over.

You are ghost or angel,

more ethereal than smoke.

And I shall be lighting
no fires tonight.

Image: Beltane Fire Dancer by NataliaLeFay (free download)

Note: For those who don't know, Beltane is traditionally celebrated with sexual passion. 

This was written when my late husband, Andrew, had been dead only two years. I'm sharing it now, 31 October 2025, with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #201: On Halloween. Having written a number of Halloween poems over the years, rather than write another I'm choosing to show this old one to an audience that didn't see it last time. 

31 Poems in 31 Days (Poewar / Writers Resource Center). Prompt: Completion.

Also a follow-on to the previous poem, which was in response to Poets United's Midweek Motif: Halloween, or Celebrating the Dead.

On Samhain Night

On Samhain night, when the veil is thin,

I collect photos of those gone before.

I set them out for viewing,

I do them honour.

It is the time of festivity for them,

our predecessors — sires, mothers,

siblings, lovers, spouses, friends,

others even longer gone….

How deeply must we reverence

those who bestowed their love

upon us, those who were here

in their lives, living.

They were here in their homes;

they knew us.  They return

to our homes which were theirs

for one night’s visit.

We owe them this: for love, for blood,

for respect, for the proper

sequence of things, for every

bond which lingers.

This is the time which we give

to them, to remember

who they were then, once —

now only ghosts.

Welcome, beloveds. We esteem you.

Here is your spot — sit, dine!

Be with us. When you go, rest

in our love until next time.

31 Poems in 31 Days (Poewar / Writers Resource Center). Prompt: Use no words with the letter a, except one word where it appears twice.

Poets United Midweek Motif: Halloween, or Celebrating the Dead; what does it truly mean to you?  (I addressed the prompt as given. However, this is the Southern Hemisphere! For what this date really signifies to me, see the next poem.)

Remembering the Dead

It's the night of Samhain

here in the Southern

half of the world.

I find photos

of my dear dead,

going through old albums.

Two were my mother's,

which I inherited; the rest

cover most of my life …

most of my loves —

but there are two faces missing.

I scrabble through shelves and drawers.

A whole album, I realise

has been mislaid.

The big one with the red cover.

In that, my children were little

and there were many shots

of their handsome father

(my second husband,

the one I had the longest,

who died in January '95).

It was the only place I kept 

pictures of him. But he was a friend 

and should be honoured.

And my beautiful Nana,

who died when I was four —

where is she?

She hated being photographed.

So the family had only one:

official, serious, in her nurse's uniform.

I've put my copy somewhere safe. 

Too safe, and now I can't 

discover the hiding-place.

Eventually I call it a day —

late into the night — and go to bed

after finally casting circle.

I tell the Listeners 

what I choose to discard 

at this time, from my life,

and what I choose 
to bring in. (Life, and all

its varied memories.)

Then I dream all night

of old homes, old dramas,

ghosts who demand their due.

When I wake, I see

it rained while I slept; the sky

is still grey, the sun

struggles through cloud,

and Samhain leaves me a task:

write the stories.

April Poem A Day Challenge, day 30: calling it a day

Shelter from the Storm

A rain day, one

I watch from indoors

though later I must go out.

Last night I called dragons

into the temple — four,

one to each quarter.

Breathing together

in circle, we women 

built a pillar of light.

My friend goes home

to sell her house and move

because the floods are coming.

My little cats love storms

and gaze from the top step

under the porch roof.

April PAD Challenge 2014, day 9: shelter

A New Form:

Each verse is an "American sentence" a 17-syllable form invented by Allen Ginsberg as a Western type of haiku. For this poem I wanted something slightly discontinuous like a ghazal, but with fewer constraints, and the American sentence seemed to lend itself to that end. I had thought of using couplets as in the ghazal, but each sentence fell naturally into three lines — which of course is more haiku-like.

Over at dVerse at present, Gay Reiser Cannon invites us to invent and name our own forms. This is a derivative form, but since it gives me something I've been seeking for years — something looser than a ghazal, more of a quasi-ghazal, which still creates that connection/separation between stanzas with an overall theme — and as I plan to use it again, I'll claim it and name it Ghazal-type 17-3. This may sound a bit clumsy, but allows for me to find more "Ghazal types" in the future.

         

In Spring She Dreams

for Jess

In Spring she dreams a sunflower,

thinking it an augury of growth,

but it does not appear.

Come Summer and it blooms

suddenly, singly, from nowhere,

in the garden where the women gather.

That evening in the circle

she leads the meditation,

flowering into her fullness.