We are crossing the mountains of the hooded woman,
following the trail of her cloak.
Somewhere in the hills is a shining lake,
somewhere on the lake is a woman.
The sun rises earlier each day,
but it grows colder, colder,
Where is the season of my heart?
Darkness swells about us and sea mist surges into fog,
blinding us, blinding us.
We are following an old map, an old story.
We are following the names on the land.
The lake we seek has no islands in it,
no cities beneath its gray waves.
The lake is a single gray eye,
staring at the future.
The lake is a cave in time.
And the woman:
swathed in dark veils,
she will be floating on silver water.
It was dark when you met me.
It will be dark when we meet her.
But now, for a moment,
light gleams on the gray mountains
and on the sea’s pale mist
For an instant we see silver light dying on the lake’s face.
At that instant, we stop.
(You ask, how we navigate?
It is easy to say:
First there is heaviness in the chest, a heartache,
restlessness, anxiety.
When you move it eases.
When you move in one direction it eases most.
Even in the cold cutting wind,
even in the gale,
moving is better than not moving.
You, too, can find Her this way.
You, too, in the awful mountains,
near the dead cliffs,
near the rock barrens,
you too can find your way.
You can find your way.
Even when you are not looking
you are looking for Her.)
That is how we travel,
looking but not looking.
That is how we move,
knowing and not knowing.
When silver gleams upon the lake’s face,
we climb the high crag over the water.
We stop to watch and wait.
A skein of geese flies crackling overhead,
aimed like an arrow.
This is the time you find to tell me a story:
how an old woman flew about the country
on a gray horse,
how she sang harshly at midnight
and brought the stars to earth,
how she hallowed the woods by perfect naming,
how she healed by a glance,
how she cursed by a word,
how she blazed through the world like a comet,
like a dark sun, like a dark moon,
like the dancing polar lights.
You can almost remember her name.
You can almost remember how you
were warned as a child of this woman,
what you must say to her,
You can almost remember.
(How did we know when to start,
to stop? It is easy to say:
Watch for the moment when the world tilts.
There are spaces you cannot see straight on
that open those moments.
That is the moment to begin,
Begin in a circle and spiral inwards.
Keep on until you hear the sound that is no sound,
a sound like bees on the moon
or a horse nickering in a dream.
Watch then the way one place rightens
itself in the tilting world.)
I cannot say how many hours pass.
Cold grows around us like moss,
darkness like ivy.
But she is not here.
She is not here like an islet on the lake.
She has hidden herself from us.
In silence we descend the crag.
In silence we leave the lake.
In silence we circle home.
There was a woman in another town,
you say, who flowed like poetry through the days
and gave her name to the land.
There was a woman in another land,
you say, who sang wild creatures from the woods
and trees down from the hills.
Where have they gone?
Where have the women gone?
Why are we in darkness again, swept by chill winds?
(Oh searchers in darkness, remember this moment.
Remember what emptiness is, remember how cold it feels.
The moment before a journey ends
is the longest of all moments.
It is only when you abandon the search
that she can be found.)
You leave me at a crossroads near a bridge.
It is deep dark.
I am alone and cold.
I have come across a world
to find her on a gleaming lake.
And I have failed.
I walk down the empty street alone.
Alone, I find the key to open a door onto a long stairway.
I climb and climb in the cold night.
I climb to the top.
She is waiting, veiled, when I arrive.
I cannot see her in the grey dark.
I cannot feel her wrap herself around me
but when I wake I am coiled by her hair.
However I move, I cannot see her.
It is as though I am blind in one eye.
However I shift, something of her disappears.
However I stare, something of her hides.
Then, in a flood of trumpet light
I see the universe of her boulder face,
the length of her snaky legs,
the gray depth of her blinded eye.
{Why is she never what we imagine,
she who waits at the end of all journeys?
Easy to say: our purpose is the journey,
hers is a purpose beyond all intent.)
At the top of long stairs near an old bridge,
she holds me like a mother, like a lover.
She pierces me with her glance.
She sings stars to me.
She calls my Perfect Name.
She surrounds me like mountains.
She floats on me, dark and silver.
She grows into me like trees, like moss.
She becomes the season of my Heart.
I am a sunny lake, I am a cold sea mist.
I am darkness upon the wings of geese.
I breathe in the knowledge of my death.
And I remember all her names at once.
*Seasons of the Witch by Patricia Monaghan
Spoken words carried weight in those days… perhaps it was the patterns of rhythm and sound… of music and poetry… what was spoken affected things for generations… 
