Eleusinia
☙ ❧

Posted in Poetry • March 2, 2024

Author's Note: This is both a very old and a very new poem. I wrote the first version of it way back in 2010 and recently rediscovered while I was going through my old writing. I liked the overall concept of the earlier poem, and I loved the way I played with rhythm in it, but a lot of the imagery no longer worked for me, and parts of it were insensitive in ways I hadn't realized at the time. So I set about reworking it into something I could be happy with, and ultimately I ended up keeping about half of the original poem and rewriting the other half. I've tried to stay true to 2010!Annie's vision in the process, and I like to think of the result as a sort of collaboration between her and me.

I am forever the reverent one.

I am the fire-thief; I am the seer.
I will go forth for you, darling, and bring back
the wisdom of gods and the voices of mountains,
the silvery stones that lie worn in the rapids,
a breath of the mist from the dizzying edge.
I am the spear that pierces the sun.

I am the hours that stretch into seasons.
I am the oak and the holly, and I
am the maiden who burst from the corpse of the king.
Each moment that made me still smolders within me;
I see their light shining like knives through my skin.
I am the stone that makes love to the sky.

I am the torch of the triple-faced archer.
I am the she-bear who swallows her shadow
and crawls from the chasm to bring forth the dawn
Blinded, I hang from the elm at the crossroads
and wrestle the names from the grip of the branches.
I am the morning star; I am her bride.

I am the scars on the swift swimmming crocodile.
I am the face in the ice on the pond.

I am the serpent, the great ouroboros.

I am the daughter who died on the altar.
I am the thief who died on the cross.
I am the empress who died on the parapet.
I am the hermit who died on the mountainside.
I am the fire that never will die.