Poem 146

There’re a few things going on here … one is my fascination with ancient bodies  found in bogs who died in just the manner described – age old whodunnits … another is how Alan Garner’s books of place, history and sites of power (particularly Red Shift) grabbed my imagination and opened me to a deep sense of awe … and the poem is also me thinking myself into that not-so-distant-or-alien society, deciding that the role of storyteller and that of holder of spirituality probably ran so close they were often the same and that is where I may well have found my place, blending powers of fiction theatre and the numinous to summon deities and ensure survival of the clan across generations …

The Shaman’s Lesson

I imagine I'm a bright up-and-comer
pretty smart for the Bronze Age
smart enough to be taken on by the boogey man
the only one who goes down to the lake
and comes back

so down we go
                 me
                     the old boogey man
and some dipstick like the miller or the baker
gormless enough to want to see the goddess
down to the peat lake
behind the green fringe of willows
hobbled by the cords
the sacred cords
we go
to see the goddess

we slip down the bank hop through the trees
and there we are
beside the flat black tannin-smelling water
like a perfect mirror

there's nothing
                  I lean against a tree root
the miller gawks out across the lake
I watch the old man slip his knots
he takes an axe from a hole under the bank
and smashes the miller with it
once
hard

I'm struggling in the harness of cords
but my knots are real
he takes the loop around the miller's neck
and puts a stick through it
he winds until the flesh meets over the top
then he stabs his special knife into the bulging neck
and the blood all runs out into the water
a red blush in the black
like a sunset cloud
he weights the body and rolls it in
                                      then
he comes towards me
everything is useless

he puts the knife into my hand
he goes back to the edge of the water and stands
looking out
waiting

after a while
the goddess comes