THE CAILLEACH

Her rule begins at Samhain.   With her broom

Made of wild winds, she gathers up the leaves

And sweeps the last of summer from the land.

As old as the grandmother long ago

Who ate the apples.  And her face is blue.

With single eye she watches the bare hills

And sees the wholeness of the highland year.

In her apron there are boulders stored

And as she goes, perhaps she lets one fall

It’s this that makes the corries and the cairns.

In Faoilleach, the wolf month, she rides abroad

Bareback, wolfback, trampling new growth

Wild storms and blizzards tumble from her shawl

For she brings winter from the mountain fasts.

At the Pool of Corryvreckan she stoops down

To launder all her plaid, then shakes it out

And lays it on the hills to dry a while

Then all the world is covered in new snow

And all the grass and trees a-buried lie

This pleases her.  You might detect her laugh

Between the calls of crows among the pines.

She is the guardian of the roaming deer

She knows which stags are strong, and which to cull

And if you ask her, Hunters, they will fall

To your straight arrows, but be sure

To thank her, or when next you reach your kill

All that remains will be your arrow, stuck

Between the clumps of heather, in bare ground.

Come April, and she feels her ancient bones

To ache with all the work of winter done

She knows she must bow down, and feels the sun

Melting at the ice within her veins

She throws her staff under a holly bush

Preparing now to sleep, she wraps her cloak

Around her haggard head, and turns to stone.