It is only the white owl
From her tall
Pine
Spire
Who
Might see the pinecone grow
And who
Still remembers
Even now, the snow
Drifting across the misted moon
After the embers
Of centuries
Of dark fire.
It was only
A while ago
Among the gold cliffs
That black ravens sounded their raucous calls
Of wisdom-woven prophecies,
They who brought the end of time, at last,
This time that has drawn to its close,
And now the single petal of the rose
Falls.
There glimmer
Within the universe of beings, the silent
Springing feet of the herd of deer
Bounding ever higher,
Ever fast,
On their journey
Across the snow.
Soon,
In the beginning,
The gold face of the setting sun
Will appear
Through silver sheets of rain that shimmer,
While, in the wandering whiffs
Of bitter smoke, will sound the cries
Of yesteryear,
That linger, still heard, echoing among the far cliffs,
The spirit of days
Gone
By.
Now hills swept with snow
Travel farther back to
The land of mists and magic, flown.
There
The wings of butterflies
Unfold in the dawn,
In the beginning
That knows still the ancient ways
And there along the shore that goes to nowhere
The brave one
Walks on alone
In the far country,
The soul of courage,
Portender of knowledge.
The howl
Of the wolf, ascendant,
Will mark
The moment
When the moon
Rises over fields of stars, when Hanuman, hero
Of the earth and the skies,
In the beginning and the ending,
Brings clouds of peace that shine
Transcendent
Through the living fire of the distant dark.
© Copyright Sharon St Joan, 2023
An invocation.