Thin Places

I go where the nettles snarl,

where the bracken bares its teeth,

where the moon spits silver

into the river's mouth,

and the rushing water drinks deep.

They need not follow me -

the trees will tell them where I've been.

I leave my name in their knotted throats,

let ivy coil it tight.

A step alone in the dark

is an altar they have burned before.

But tonight, the fire is mine.

I lay in a circle of salt,

feel the earth shiver my name.

The wind tugs at my hair,

whispers secrets with a tongue

only the oaks remember.

The stream stirs restless

stones, shifting knucklebones in its palm.

Foxgloves stretch their poison mouths in prayer.

The sky, swollen and sullen,

presses its forehead to the hills.

Once, they called me hedge-born, heathen

a thing that stirs but won't sink;

too wild for rings or reins.

I am unmarked, unnamed, undone -

but cannot be unmade.

I have lived in the thin places,

where the world frays its edges,

where roots dare dream in the dark

and rivers care not for kings.

I am one who dares not return.

I am the road that leads away.

Let them call it sacrilege.

Let them call it sin.

The crows caw my name,

the wind scatters it like ash.

They would rather drown me

than hear the words I am learning to say.

So I carve them into bark,

sing them into bone,

and when the dawn comes to look for me,

it finds that I am gone.

David McGraw