"The Witch is Dead"

 

For the ghosts of the Burning Times.

 

 

Did you hear? The witch is dead. Her ashes lay burned in the town square. Burned to cinders, never again. Her bones lay mingling with

the soil. they celebrate, as bells toll far and near. Children scuttle in the streets as men and women cheer. The fools. The wretched fools.

They should be crying, they should be mourning.  We have lost and squandered a bit of ourselves. The witch, who mingled with dryads and danced in nighhtshade. She who held a motherly gaze. She is burned now for our communal sin. She is burned now for our fears and misgivings. We have lost her, yet they do not realize. They spin a maypole in the village lanes. They fashion wicker effigys and relive it all over again.

 

Oh lord how I mourn her. She who healed, kept vigil. The mystic sorceress who conjured life into shadows. Spoke in the realm between dreams and waking. Who set candles aflame with her mere glance. Who never stole a child nor harmed a youth. Never fouled a crop nor let fly the storms above. We have killed our doorway. Our wonderous conduit to the realm of Isis and Oberon. The maiden of the snowfields, the mistress of the green man. She is set aflame for our fears and woes, a sacrafice to when reason grows.

 

She was our mangled lamb, our queen of ritual who laughed in the night. Did you see her? dancing amid Stonehenge? Did you feel her? As whisped past you in the woods? Did you sense her? As she kissed your face in the dead of night? 'Twas only the kiss of the mother.

So now goes the wise woman, who's bones lay uncovered. I must mourn her in secret-'lest I be discovered. Oh what should we do now, as the people make merry and sing to this day. How sad we should celebrate-that they took wisdom away.