Equinox
by Alison Jones

The year is creeping to a close
The darkness flexing, waxing strong,
Leaves are turning red with death
As Autumn stifles Summer's song.
Skies are strangely clear to view,
Stars dance onward to balance the year,
Squirrels make ready their nutty hoards
As spirits of winter draw ever near.
In the home, the table is set
with harvests reaped from ripened toil,
the year is viewed, weighed and judged,
against spring's cauldron of dreams that boil,
over the edges and into our lives
our arrows cast high into the sun,
now at reckoning time we cannot deny
successes or failures from works now done.
So come gaze into the Autumn fire
captured in leaves for all to see,
A beauteous death caught in a gyre,
to precede a New Year's nativity.
Reflect upon the brightened workings
from Spring launched high into an arc,
to crest the heavens' brightened cloak
to earthbound fall at the gate of dark.
Sheer away the unachieved,
shout successes boasts are to be made,
think carefully on ideas now seeded,
to be nurtured in the blackening days.
Sit quiet here in congregation,
in a circle, friend with friend,
witnessing the ever turning
wheeling the year to a timely end.
Toast the Old Year in it's passing
hold cups high to the harvest fare,
Cailleach lurks around the corner
coming forth from the mound
to claim offerings rich and rare.
And now the light fades in the heartland,
And cold creeps in from every side,
in the earth the seeds are dreaming,
of a New Year reborn from that which has died.

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Equinox © Alison Jones 2005