Dirty Little Secrets

lately the way i’m feeling
i’m surprised i don’t hate your guts
i wonder how many years
i’ll keep thinking about you
and remembering us
while i hide my thoughts
behind this mask of “everything’s fine”

i lay awake at night alone in my bed
thinking about all the things you said
and i think of you way too much
the years pass by, my hair turning grey
and only my misery for company
it still hurts as if it just happened
i’m flinching at the sound of your name

told constantly i am no one important
and everyone i trusted betrayed me
so you see why i’m so suspicious
when told that someone loves me
a place i’ve been but never seen
and it always comes with a price
that i, suffering, alone must pay

ebb tide comes to the sea,
old age brings aching bones,
yet for our youth we may grieve,
as others do, when we’re gone.

i am an Old Woman of the Sídhe,
i once wore silken saffron gowns,
today the Poets live in poverty,
and the world is ruled by clowns.

my right eye has been taken from me
in the service of this nation,
i am an Old Woman of the Sídhe,
i envy no man of high station,

you powerful men, you love money,
but you hate the People who labor,
yet in the time of the Sídhe
it was the People that we favored.

may Winter of Age descend upon you,
like the decay of an ancient tree,
may you be haunted by all that you do,
in the name of the Land of the Free.

the day will come when the tide will return
the oil and spilled blood beyond the sea,
then you and yours will pay as you earned,
as it was in the time of the Sídhe.

here at the world’s northern shore
the winter winds blow,
rivers are frozen,
trees covered in snow,
and the sounds of an old woman’s moan,

the Cailleach on horseback goes riding
through the stars, and the dust
of ten thousand ages,
calling her husband,
calling through the realms, calling him home,

here among the fields of snow,
her pony of white,
hooves beating like drums,
in dusky moonlight
after the wild geese have flown,

telling men where the deer were grazing,
the Cailleach Bheara sings
the Song of Songs;
the old grandmother who ate the apples . . .
such a long time ago.

*Cailleach (pronounced “kahl-yuhkh”)