a mamaist abyss revisited

The spooky art at heaven’s edge,

Diving deeper into shadow without moving a step,

The mind set free into the familiar

All over and over again, newly swung

Into action, for a truth once uncovered

Never stops being true, running on

Its own steam. But now catching wind

As a feeling, you go deeper, eavesdropping

On yourself, and the mind you hear you would

Compare to others, to otherness, resonating

In the fathomless depths where you hear

A voice calmly saying, I link, therefore I am

Dancing on the edge, on the edge between.

Botsford, Alan. A Book of Shadows. Katydid Books, 2003.

a mamaist pact

The dark is raising questions from the dead 

Among us, for justice done 

To the pain of the living, their spirit none 

The wiser or quickened by 

The answering stars in the sky… 

For darkness does its deed 

Out of need 

Of silence, whose desire-quelled heat limns-- 

Shimmering off the rock of the moon, round 

And round the earth-- and swims 

In the bath of space, then 

Plunges past all human time toward globes 

Where, emerging in the other world, earth disrobes

In unexpected tenderness, and shines there,

All eyes upon her, 

Before stepping back in the warm

Shadows where sleep, like a friend, will accompany 

Her for the duration, until personally

Summoned by dawn for the day’s intricate details 

(there are too many), there to form 

A new pact, honored in the making, between 

Tracks left in the road and the imagined journey

Made, true and awful, in obeyance as if to charms, 

From solemn start to joyous finish, that the dead, 

In having crossed this world,

Would be alive and well in the living’s 

Outstretched and welcoming arms.

Botsford, Alan. A Book of Shadows. Katydid Books, 2003.