Tongue of Fire -Joshua Gramse

Night is long

Season of stillness

The Harvest, two turnings of the moon past and more

Frost now before dawn

My grandfather closed his eyes when the last leaves fell

We wrapped him, tethered him in the river's flow

Trees stand, fleshless hands grasping black sky

Ice silvered eye of the sky serpent stares

Its golden eye is heavy, barely wakes

Dark swallows the days

Night is long

Night's season

Cold smell of earth, stone, mist on the river, men, women, beasts

Breath steams in the air

Hush, Hush in the pre-dawn

We build no fires

We are silent shadows before the mound

The mound

Gateway to the other sphere

Our gateway

Rising above us

Passage like a black maw

Dark mouth for the sleeping otherworld 

How it waits

Not even beasts bray, nor bellow in the gloom

So quiet now

Birds hold their breath

Bursting above us

Sky breaks and a blaze

Great golden eye rouses, opens, spills a tear

A tiny dart of skyfire splits the dome of heaven

Shining missile into the doorway of the mound, caught there

Fills the entrance, a mouth spilling gold

A tongue of fire in the passage gleaming

A throat to drink the light deep into the belly cold

And green things stir in their slumber, heavy lids lighten

The light is strong

Its time is short

We carry cold grandfather to the bright door

Washed by light, radiant halo about the elder skull

He is draped in his finest raiment

Gift of his lost wife's hand

Pinned with a bit of antler

From a stag he felled when young

There is a cradle of stone for him inside

Down the passage

We lay him in the glowing chamber

The belly of the gateway mound is warming

The otherworld is yawning

When we give fire to his old body

And leave him smoking

He sheds his cold bones and steps through

Is gone

The Light blinks out in the chamber

A black gateway once more

We emerge 

A pale dawn, sky of iron

Cold day so brief

But we know it's turning

Dead season too will die

And from ashes rises 

Like grandfather from his bones

Growing green and pumping red

We light the fires

Bright legion of flame

We are together

Women, men and beasts

Warm hands to give late harvest's bounty

Oat and millet, sweet roots and the winter's hunt

And good things found in the cold

A light in the darkness

A promise

In the long night

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