Elusive Truth

Dark Rites of hope of Spring!

(What offal thing?)

Triune group: girls, womben, crones:

running, with pink piglets

greased and wriggling,

(with gales of laughter!)

to the brink, the orifice,

of the Pit of Mystery,

caduseus staffed by sibylant, secret snakes

(healing, for Goddesses,’ goodness' sakes!)

blood sacrifice: over the precipice!

Then the pig-tailed young climbing down

(still giggling, tickling, on a lark?)

to find among bramble, nettle, and thistle

(among caves and graves)

old bones, free of marrow and gristle,

clean as a whistle,

for whistling in the dark:

rib from the cage of breath,

to assuage the fear of death.

Eleusinian joy eludes us.

One thing is clear:

we ‘live’ now and here,

caged (nowhere)

by fear.

Be brave, my dear!

© Tamara Rasmussen 2018