I think it's interesting - it's reinventing a genre that's been used and abused. But I want you to read it and tell me what do YOU think!
Spectral Woods
(reprinted from Echoed Voices)
(reprinted from Echoed Voices)
The cold white light
Of the moon at night
Reveals a secret passageway
Through black-kneed trees
Manzanita keys
And barn-owls shrieking Not Today!
The creek's mice dice
With the Breaking ice
Beneath the forest canopy;
A witch chants cants
For pagan plants
And bobcats play watch-and-see.
And ghost-rise nighs
When Orion dies:
A phantom castle's palisade
Of cold, black stacks
Where the moonlight lacks
And armies formed from shards of shade.
The Wedding of Beorwine
(reprinted from Mythic Circle)
(reprinted from Mythic Circle)
The bride of Beorwine bells wore
On kinsman's kerchief and kerseymere dress.
She would fain have furs but father gave none,
Nor glitter nor gold in gay-painted chest.
Coarse were her clothes but clear her eye,
Fair her face as fairy's wife,
Long her limbs and lithe as sprite,
And gossips gabbed she was get of fay.
Beaming Beorwine he boat made fast,
To land leaping from serpent's lair.
From horse he helped her; hair-tosser blew;
To ship he shouldered the sharing-chest.
O old always was Beorwine armored
And girt with greatsword and glee of battle,
But kelp-green cloth now under carved box went;
Hence nought he needed but knives for table.
His lands were large and learned was he
In matters of money and the means of court;
Only love he lacked in his long-held halls;
Foward few what he found would know.
The wind-farer wove through knotted waves
And bride and bridegroom bent to watch
The moonwright's maiden melting in the brine;
Hand met hand on hurrying oak.
When at last to land the longship sailed
And anchored at inlet to eddying stream,
Grass all green and golden dew
Saw Alfrun of Egil of old the kin.
"It is beautiful" said the bride of Beorwine glad.
"I care for comelier: for thee." To clay they stepped,
And from hill and heath the people hailed them.
Over fallow fields fast they rode.
Man and maiden to merry hall
At long last laughing came.
The roof with runes of right was carved,
Bread was baking, boar cooked within.
Famous, and fairly, the feast became,
In days long dead, for deep cook-pots.
Skill of skalds was scored that night,
Til dawn dim dripped through windows.
Blue-caped bridemakers bellowed to the sky
Their chants and charms for chieftan's luck.
Came man and maiden to morning-glory field,
Sun's eye was open, omens were good.
Soft and simply spoke Beorwine:
"Alfrun of Isernmark of Egil's house,
Fair as when first fleeting I saw thee,
On hilltop high above windy heath,
When young was I, untested in battle,
My heart thou heldst by hope of love.
Now chieftan I am chosen, change touched thee not;
Wilt marry me, my lovely maid?"
A small smile smote him dumb.
"Beorwine brave, thy bride am I.
The kin, thy castle, thy care, thy land,
From shore to shale-hill, all will I share."
To wed them well, the wish-provers
Sang their songs and seared the air
With told tokens and torches six.
Shadown shortened, Sunna shone.
Joined hands and jumped over jolly broom
Did Beorwine bold and his bride comely.
Home to hall and hearth went they,
Nor rested nor rose til the veil was rent.
