Creature Speak

Summer is here.  Scampering prairie dogs and low-flying hawks.  

Smaller birds sunning on fences as foxes frolic in the fields.  

Fish leap in streams as new flowers appear.

Mountain drizzle cools our skin as the heat climbs within.  

We feel the life force surge around us, before the impending Fall preceding death’s reign.

There is pain in bright sunlight, and we must shield our eyes or lose our sight.  

There is a strange fight in heat rising to meet moisture in the sky, and I hear odd music in the breeze.  

A river-song in a different key than before: as if all this light flooding the view opens a door slowly beneath my shoes.  

I can fall with gravity or cut them loose: pull my feet out in time before the bell chimes and the passage closes.

What waits in the undertow of life’s flow we shall not know until our time comes to depart.

In the meantime we cling to our hearts beating and beaming life into being, praying to start anew: reprieve from strife in the glorious light.

We wonder what Summer could be like without the burning?  

Without the price for churning in the ever-turning wheel: the cost of the opportunity to feel, the sacrifice of being real. 

Flesh and blood in the mountains mouth, living fire in the Dragon’s breath, calling us out of hiding.  

To burn away the binding of all we subscribe to that we never knew would own us: the things we buy to shield our mind to what lies below us.

Watch the butterflies in a maiden’s hair and the deer appear as if no human was ever there.  

Hope the sun will remain to strike the fear down.  

Swim in seas to wash away the dreams of drowning.  

Climb high to escape the visions of dissolving in the air without a sound.

The quiet end, alone.  To pass away, unknown.

Ignore the ever present pulling at our center, the invitation to enter another realm, clinging to the light in denial of hell.  

But hell comes nonetheless, in fire and storms and the great distress of inevitable loss;

For all things fade sooner or later, in daylight or in the shaded plots we stow away for harsher days when the light renders all too clear what we resist and what we love.  

So I ask to see the season for its purpose: to flood us with light in order to prepare us for the long night.  

For night is but a glimpse of what waits behind the door, and the Sun was part of that clan long before man decided to extract it.

Try as we may to shield our eyes from the magic of eventide, because all great works have a price we never know until it arrives.

I can’t ignore the melody lurking deep within the blazing sun, singing the threads of life undone.

And I shall burn for now until the waters cleanse the earth and eventually still.

For the Underworld will penetrate the veil in time in colder days and gleaming ice.  

Summer, sunshine, light and day are not all they seem, for they are part of the great fading of all things.  

And Night is kind sometimes in her blessing of relief in peaceful sleep.  

So I release my grip on Summertime into the flames to feed the light.  

I pray for grace until then: that my spirit may find rest when my day descends to gift me to his treasured friend.

And she will take me into her gentle arms at last, as I let my sunlight wane and pass away. 

Rest awaits, wise and dark, when the fires subside in our hearts and our sparks embark.

Copyright © Sheyorah Naify, 2021

Author’s Note: This is a longer piece written for myself, and performed for the Summer Solstice ritual in the Druid Grove I am part of. The reception was immensely encouraging and I was asked to share the written form. I’m a little late getting it out, but here it is. I hope you don’t mind a little darkness in your bright summer tidings. Please forgive the length. I cut it down the best I could, and I’m not an editor.