where mystery abounds

red stone

a thousand thousand summers ago
the red stone was cast across the waters
the grandmothers’ grandmothers saw
what was to be

though the furies would divide them
and Earth herself would split in two
the red stone was cast
and it would be so

for eons and eons more
from deep within the cold abyss
snows rose up inside the echoes
to plunge life into darkness
not even the Sacred Tree
would hear the songs of birds
or flourish for the celebration

celebrations withered ere the morning star
would show its light
or the psalmody be chanted
from the greening moors
or the caves below the ocean’s floor
would shout

fires scorched the bones that cried out
till stars rained down their blessings
till at last the Sacred Tree
bore fruits of gold and honey
yet withheld its holy nectar for
the coming of the Chosen One

then, though countless yugas
suspended long between them,
one by one, the twenty-eight of twenty-eight
eternal grandmothers
from across the great divide
did pronounce:
“Yes, she is the One.”

no matter the detours and dead ends
nor choices seeming freely made
but never untied from
Destiny herself
it had to be.
She arrived
today

the day
vouchsafed
when the Ancients
carved her name upon
red stone

       ~pb © november 2013