The White Doe Speaks

A number of months ago a poet shared a piece with me that was inspired by one of my drawings. As the Fates would have it, I was lucky enough to check my junk mail folder that day, otherwise it would have been lost to me among the oblivion of dross which normally (and thankfully) gets sorted into that location. I expressed my gratitude and appreciation for the beautiful words and asked if I might be able to post his piece along with my image somewhere. Unfortunately, I did not hear back from him (maybe my letter to him was gobbled up by his own spam filter, or perhaps he did reply and the Fates chose not to favor me a second time).

Perhaps the time was just not right, but with the new Summer 2008 edition of Goblin Fruit, the White Doe speaks:

I pull the landscape
into folds across my back,
a kimono of land and water.
To feel a leaf with one shoulder
or tree roots buried in earth
is a sacred thing
and cannot be imagined.

- spoken through the grace of Joshua Gage

I'd also like to take this opportunity to join the editors of Goblin Fruit in saying a fond farewell to The Endicott Studio which has been nurturing mythopoetic arts for the number of years as there are letters in my full name (a figure which also coincides with the day of my birth). I am too poor a writer to properly express how influential and inspirational the Endicott Studio has been for me, and I will miss it sorely. Thank you Terri and Midori!

Fée Intoxicated

Yesterday I picked up a copy of The Book of Celtic Verse edited by John Matthews. Not surprisingly, it contains a number of faery-influenced pieces, including the one below:

"The Others"
by Seumas O'Sullivan (1879 - 1958)

From our hidden places
By a secret path,
We come in the moonlight
To the side of the green rath.

There the night through
We take our pleasure,
Dancing to such a measure
As earth never knew.

To song and dance
And lilt without a name,
So sweetly breathed
'Twould put a bird to shame.

And many a young maiden
Is there, or mortal birth,
Her young eyes laden
With dreams of earth.

And many a youth entranced
Moves slowly in the wildered round,
His brave lost feet enchanted
With the rhythm of faery sound.

Music so forest wild
And piercing sweet would bring
Silence on the blackbirds singing
Their best in the ear of spring.

And now they pause in their dancing,
And look with troubled eyes,
Earth straying children
With sudden memory wise.

They pause, and their eyes in the moonlight
With faery wisdom cold,
Grow dim and a thoughts goes fluttering
In the hearts no longer old.

And then the dream forsakes them,
And sighing, whispering turn anew,
As the whispering music takes them,
To the dance of the elfin crew.

O many a thrush and blackbird
Would fall to the dewy ground,
And pine away in silence
For envy of the sound.

So the night through
In our sad pleasure,
We dance to many a measure,
That earth never knew.