and hurls a stone.
* * * *
The Hare, The Moon
The moon's love's the hare, his death is dark of moon. He is her last prey, light's body, as the midnight soul, night's Ashes, is her first: All Hallows Eve, May Eve, her A and O. In spring, the waning of her year, she hunts in green: not vivid, but a cold grey green, as pale as lichened stone; afoot, for her hunt is scattered. And she hunts by night. Where her feet have passed is white with dew. Swift and mad, the hare runs, towards hallows, to the thicket's lap, unhallowing in white. He sees the white moon tangled in her thorn. Her lap is sanctuary. He would lie there panting, with his old rough jacket torn, his blood on the branches, red as haws. But at dawn, the hey is down. The white girl rises from the tree; she dances on the hill, unknowing ruth. Yet he runs to her rising, eastward to the sky. Behind him runs his deerlegged death, his pale death. There are some now blind have seen her, all in grey as stone, greygreen in moving. No, another says, as red as a roe deer or the moon in slow eclipse. At dawn, she will be stone.
They are sisters, stone and thorn tree, dark and light of one moon. Annis, Malykorne. And they are rivals for the hare, his love, his death: each bears him in her lap, as child, as lover and as lyke. They wake his body and he leaps within them, quick and starkening; they bear him light. Turning, they are each the other, childing and devouring: the cauldron and the sickle and the cold bright bow. Each holds, beholds, the other in her glass. And for a space between the night and morning, they are one, the old moon in the new moon's arms, the paling of her breast. The scragged hare slips them as they clasp. He's for Brock's bag, caught kicking.
* * * *
Masks
Wouldst know thy fortune? her lover says. And laughing, as his bright hair ruffles at her breath, Ah. What's o'clock?
Not yet , she says, low-voiced. (The stone in his ear, like the blood of its piercing. The bruised root stirring on his thigh.) Not dawning yet. Nor moon nor sun.
Will not it rise? he says, rounding.
And go to seed. She smiles, remembering. Not yet. I've plucked it green.
* * * *
The Rattlebag
The boy kneels, drunken, in the barn. They hold her down for him, the moon's bitch, twisting, cursing in the filthy straw. A vixen in a trap. He holds the felly of the cartwheel, sick and shaken, in the reeling stench. Cold muck and angry flesh. Their seed in snail tracks on her body, snotted in her sootblack hair. Their blood—his own blood—in her nails. She is Ashes and holy. He fumbles, tries to turn his face. He's not thirteen. “Get it into her, mawkin!” calls the bagman, wilting. Ashes and fear. “Thinks it's to piss with.” “Hey, crow-lad! Turn it up a peg.” “Spit in t'hole.” And the man with the daggled ribbons, his fiddle safe in straw, cries, “Flayed it's thy mam?"
* * * *
The Hare, The Moon (Turned Down)
The black hare's bonny, as they sing: she lies under aprons, she's love under hedges. And she's harried to the huntsman's death, the swift undoing of his gun. But the white hare's death, they say: a maid forsaken or a child unmourned, returning from her narrow grave. A love betrayed. Her false lad will meet her on the moor at dusk, a pale thing fleeting; he will think he gives chase. But she flees him and she follows, haunting like the ghost of love. She draws him to his death. And after he will run, a shadow on the hills, a hare: the moon's prey and her shadow. Love's the black hare, but the white is death. And one's the other one, now white, now black, and he and she, uncanny as the changing moon. They say the hare lays eggs; it bears the sun within a moon. A riddle. Break it and there's nought within.
* * * *
Riddles
He holds her ring up, glancing through it with his quick blue eye; and laughs, and pockets it. A riddle. What's all the world and nothing?
O , says she, thine heart. ‘Tis for any hand. Thyself would fill it.
And he, Nay, it is th’
* * * *
The Hare, The Moon
The moon's love's the hare, his death is dark of moon. He is her last prey, light's body, as the midnight soul, night's Ashes, is her first: All Hallows Eve, May Eve, her A and O. In spring, the waning of her year, she hunts in green: not vivid, but a cold grey green, as pale as lichened stone; afoot, for her hunt is scattered. And she hunts by night. Where her feet have passed is white with dew. Swift and mad, the hare runs, towards hallows, to the thicket's lap, unhallowing in white. He sees the white moon tangled in her thorn. Her lap is sanctuary. He would lie there panting, with his old rough jacket torn, his blood on the branches, red as haws. But at dawn, the hey is down. The white girl rises from the tree; she dances on the hill, unknowing ruth. Yet he runs to her rising, eastward to the sky. Behind him runs his deerlegged death, his pale death. There are some now blind have seen her, all in grey as stone, greygreen in moving. No, another says, as red as a roe deer or the moon in slow eclipse. At dawn, she will be stone.
They are sisters, stone and thorn tree, dark and light of one moon. Annis, Malykorne. And they are rivals for the hare, his love, his death: each bears him in her lap, as child, as lover and as lyke. They wake his body and he leaps within them, quick and starkening; they bear him light. Turning, they are each the other, childing and devouring: the cauldron and the sickle and the cold bright bow. Each holds, beholds, the other in her glass. And for a space between the night and morning, they are one, the old moon in the new moon's arms, the paling of her breast. The scragged hare slips them as they clasp. He's for Brock's bag, caught kicking.
* * * *
Masks
Wouldst know thy fortune? her lover says. And laughing, as his bright hair ruffles at her breath, Ah. What's o'clock?
Not yet , she says, low-voiced. (The stone in his ear, like the blood of its piercing. The bruised root stirring on his thigh.) Not dawning yet. Nor moon nor sun.
Will not it rise? he says, rounding.
And go to seed. She smiles, remembering. Not yet. I've plucked it green.
* * * *
The Rattlebag
The boy kneels, drunken, in the barn. They hold her down for him, the moon's bitch, twisting, cursing in the filthy straw. A vixen in a trap. He holds the felly of the cartwheel, sick and shaken, in the reeling stench. Cold muck and angry flesh. Their seed in snail tracks on her body, snotted in her sootblack hair. Their blood—his own blood—in her nails. She is Ashes and holy. He fumbles, tries to turn his face. He's not thirteen. “Get it into her, mawkin!” calls the bagman, wilting. Ashes and fear. “Thinks it's to piss with.” “Hey, crow-lad! Turn it up a peg.” “Spit in t'hole.” And the man with the daggled ribbons, his fiddle safe in straw, cries, “Flayed it's thy mam?"
* * * *
The Hare, The Moon (Turned Down)
The black hare's bonny, as they sing: she lies under aprons, she's love under hedges. And she's harried to the huntsman's death, the swift undoing of his gun. But the white hare's death, they say: a maid forsaken or a child unmourned, returning from her narrow grave. A love betrayed. Her false lad will meet her on the moor at dusk, a pale thing fleeting; he will think he gives chase. But she flees him and she follows, haunting like the ghost of love. She draws him to his death. And after he will run, a shadow on the hills, a hare: the moon's prey and her shadow. Love's the black hare, but the white is death. And one's the other one, now white, now black, and he and she, uncanny as the changing moon. They say the hare lays eggs; it bears the sun within a moon. A riddle. Break it and there's nought within.
* * * *
Riddles
He holds her ring up, glancing through it with his quick blue eye; and laughs, and pockets it. A riddle. What's all the world and nothing?
O , says she, thine heart. ‘Tis for any hand. Thyself would fill it.
And he, Nay, it is th’