Candlemas

[poliphilo]

Marsden is a small town on the Yorkshire side of the Pennines which mounts a fire-festival at Imbolc. It's a modern tradition going back about 15 years. They have a torchlight procession along the canal tow-path and fireworks and guising.  I went about ten years ago with Jax- who was a member of our coven and an RE teacher- and wrote this poem a year later.


                                   CANDLEMAS 

                                    Round about now- late January-

                                    With the cold in my head still being a bitch

                                    And the weather cold and dank and grey,

                                    I start to be thinking a lot about spring.

 

                                    Last night I dreamed I was pushing a wheelchair

                                    Up a steep hill in a strange town,

                                    Looking for where my grandparents lived

                                    (They're dead of course) and I'd lost the address.

 

                                    And that's why Candlemas is so good;

                                    It punctuates a dead time of year

                                    And gives me an image to carry about

                                    Of a girl with an evergreen crown on her head

                                   

                                    With candles in it.  One year we plaited

                                    A crown like hers from wire and leaves

                                    And one of the girls in the coven wore it,

                                    Candles ablaze.  It teetered a bit

 

                                    And so did she, but the look of the thing

                                    Was fine.  Last Candlemas Jax and I

                                    Drove over the hills to the festival

                                    At Marsden.  What a show they put on.

 

                                    There was old Jack Frost- a nine-foot contraption

                                    Moving with little, little steps

                                    (Like Beverley with that crown on her head)

                                    Receiving a challenge from equally delicate

 

                                    Jack in the Green.  They had a fight,

                                    Bumping carefully into each other,

                                    Till bad Jack left and good Jack did

                                    His victory twirl.  Then guisers masked

 

                                    As spry young foxes danced in formation

                                    Each with a flaming torch in her paw.

                                    Low in the cloudless sky the moon

                                    Hung full and poured her influence

           

                                    On the black waters of the canal,

                                    As in the Tarot card of that name,

                                    Where the crawfish struggles out of the pool

                                    And two odd, fox-like, dog-like things                

                                   

                                    Howl to left and right of a path

                                    That winds uphill between two towers

                                    Into the country of wicked illusion

                                    Or cheerful illusion- you tell me which-

 

                                    Where grandpapa and grandmama

                                    Are sitting up to be visited

                                    In their penthouse flat in the comfy chairs

                                    We sent long,  long ago to the tip.

Comments

[margaretarts.livejournal.com]

Your last stanza is moving to me, very beautiful. The thought of time racing on, and your grandparents whose lives were quite normal if a little lonely until they died, and then their chairs are discarded at the tip (great last word, going up and cutting off).

I've been wanting to find where my great-grandparents lived in County Cork -- and to find out why they moved to America, and any other scraps of information -- and I feel if I knew where to look, their other relatives and I (all of us about the same age as one another, I'm imagining) could have a sweet conversation about how time goes on and on.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

My sister has tried to research our family history. We can get as far back as our great grandfather and great grandmother but beyond that the trail goes cold.

[craftyailz.livejournal.com]

I love this poem. Candlemas was always a festival of lights for us, wasn't it. Partly, I think, because we live so high up, the days are very grey in winter, what with low cloud and all, so it gets quite depressing.

You should put up your Jono Februarta poem - that's a good one too, especially at this time of year.

xx

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Candlemas used to be good. I think it took us a while to work out what it meant for us though.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

That's really good. I liked all the very specific description and the simile with the tarot card. Wish I was going to Marsden for Imbolc. Hooray for the enlightened pagan burghers and their Jacks and foxes.

I have an Imbolc poem in draft and will post it tomorrow. There is some sort of Imbolc cyberpoetry festival going on. ysabetwordsmith has the details.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I'm looking forward to your Imbolc poem.

I'll check out the cyberpoetry festival.