An Invocation To Pan, by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams

Hello Poets,
The lyrical English poet Hilary Llewellyn-Williams works with direct, urgent and sensuous language to conjure up the shamanic heart of nature.
Enjoy,
Sam


An Invocation To Pan

Come, eye of the forest
come, beast-footed
stag-crowned
man-membered; come, tree-sinewed
soil-rubbed, leaf-garlanded;
come, goat-nimble
come, bird-joyful
come, fox-cunning;
out of the boles and burrows
out of the humps and hollows
out of the heaps of leaves;
out of mist and darkness
out of sunshafts, gold motes,
flowers, insects humming:
brown lying down in summer by the river
your flute notes cool
and black striding up from the woods in winter
wreathed in fogs, your voice belling;
come, old one, come, green one,
tree-protector, beast-befriender
good shepherd, wise steward:
come, earth-brother
long long lost
long long lost
let us find you
call you
call you up, out, back, forth –
be here now!
O musk of fur sour
in the wind, your branched head
through the thickets
coming, coming
in your power, your power, your power.

by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams, from Hummadruz, 2001

Assurance, by Bill Stafford

Hello Poets,
The Bill Stafford poem below "seemed to be a way we could raise our faces and talk back to the darkness around us."
Following his sudden death in 1993 "Assurance" was sent to hundreds of his friends and readers.
Thanks to the many of you who inquired about missing the Monday Poems. It was the combined effects of my electronic ineptitude and the demands of spring gardening.
Best,
Sam

Assurance

You will never be alone, you hear so deep
a sound when autumn comes. Yellow
pulls across the hills and thrums,
or the silence after lightening before it says
its names- and then the clouds' wide-mouthed
apologies. You were aimed from birth:
you will never be alone. Rain
will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon,
long aisles- you never heard so deep a sound,
moss on rock, and years. You turn your head-
that’s what the silence meant: you’re not alone.
The whole wide world pours down.

by William Stafford, from Smoke’s Way, 1983