Birds

The gulls circle wildly above
their white feathers
flashing against the impenetrable blue of the lake
a dervish dance
a shrieking, skirling herald of joy
I am enchanted by their spirit
their daring to be so free
their pure expression of life

Mountainside Brides

Scorned Brides of the Mountainside

The mist came rolling in

And we knew

The brides had come to stay.

Wounded women

Diaphanous and transient

Creeping through the fern trees

The veiled brides of the mountainside

They lay low

Biding their time

Seven sisters they were

Some widowed, some spurned

They have come here

To mourn their beloveds,

To make a funeralsite of the mountainside,

To lay ruin to their dreams

Bereaved and betrayed

They lie hysterical across the mountainside

Fawning, fainting

Arching their backs

In physical catastrophe

Heavy with despair

They breathe their darkness

And dormant bitterness

And heave sighs from the sky

They are the mist that clings to the trees

And rises perniciously from the valley

They are the biting wind that howls

The eldest

The stoic spurned

Long ago jilted,

Crawls through the crags

And sequesters in a dank crevice

Like some troll or beast

Plotting her revenge

For one thousand bitter years

The youngest sister

Newly widowed

Weeps soft secret tears

Bereaved for her passed love

Decomposing

She has carried his corpse to this funeral site

And makes a rite of his scattered bones

She will lay with them once more.

She cuts off her golden locks

Weaves them through his hair to create a wreath

They scatter their rings

The sisters, seven

Their golden jewels they leave to the mountainside

Feeding the darkness, the mould,

The growing hunger of the damp

It clings to the rocks as moss

Fertile in its distress

They weave their dresses,

Their white veils

And laced matrimonial finery

Through the trees

Decorating the mountainside

With morbid mist

But they wont stay long

A winter’s season

Or a cold spring morning

They’ll continue to walk

Barefoot and baleful

To haunt another valley

To occupy another mountainside

With malignant mist