MULLED WINE–a Poem for the Yule Season
It begins where the smoke hits your eyes: smouldering peat,
Mutton stew on a broad iron hook,
Deep snow. How can it ever have been summer?
Apples wrinkling and mice in the barley—
With so much to fear, thank the gods for company!
We’ll tell our tales, remember how we passed the cold
Last year, and the one before.
And those who couldn’t.
The grape leans across
The seasons, clasps the hand of summer’s
Dried rind, dreaming the new fruit,
Calling the sun back,
World without end amen.
—Mark Green
Mark Green
Author of ATHEOPAGANISM: An Earth-Honoring Path Rooted in Science and ROUND WE DANCE: Creating Meaning Through Seasonal Rituals, Mark Green is the initiator of the Atheopagan path and editor at the Atheopaganism blog. He volunteers as a staffer to the Atheopagan Society Council to support the growth of Atheopaganism throughout the world. In his home of Sonoma County, California, in the occupied ancestral lands of the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok peoples, he is best known as an environmental activist and founder of Sonoma County Conservation Action, the largest environmental activism group in his region. He continues to work in the conservation sphere, focusing particularly on protection of natural landscapes on California's federal public lands.
3 Comments
iamme1142
I loved your poem and the illustration.
Mark Green
Thank you!
Kalia Kliban
That image of “leaning across the seasons” is really evocative. Bitter and sweet, both.