Hecate

I dreamt of me, I think - was it really me?
Blowing roughly through the rain

So sure of my way, too true of the mark
Riding through that forest in the dark.
Was I ever that bold when young

Naked, plucked clean of doubt.

When had the light gone out?

She was there, she was there
By the clearing in the copse, as I knew she’d be.
Only hair, covering flesh, that glowed despite the moon.
Her eyes shining in the night, were a brimming cup of jewels

And she was mine, yes once she was mine
Were we ever really so young, so divine?

But I remember now, ah yes - all too well
The clothes she wore to cover the swell.
How different it was after a time
Never so bold, softer, wiser, but still divine.
Yet change was delivered with that forest scream
Time and wisdom, she said, ends the dream.

And all too soon it seemed, all too soon

Stooped beneath the light of the moon
Time destroyed that beauty that I’d known

Under hood, stands now a crone.

But written absolute in her every crag and line
Is that while I have fallen, she stands, still divine.

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

As I recall, Hecate was an ancient Greek goddess. The lady in the poem seems to have been regarded as a goddess by the speaker, who recalls the way she looked in times past. But as the poem says, "time and wisdom ends the dream." She is now a crone, her physical beauty gone. Still, the speaker regards her as divine, which suggests that the attraction was never purely physical. I wonder what that mysterious "swell" was.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Ah, goddess worship, I think I've traveled down that road. But my goddess proved less than immortal and her love, a passing whim. It's not so much her fault though, she was always swooned by every man under the moon and every rock and roll guitar player who could carry a tune. It gave her a misunderstanding of what love is and she was always struggling, wondering where she went wrong. She passed away still struggling, with cancer that last time. She tried to call me the day before her death, I suppose to say goodbye. But by the time I got her message, she was gone. The title of this drew me in, the goddess of the moon, witchcraft and ghosts...she sounds like any great lost love a man could recall; certainly men fall under their spell, sometimes under the moon and get haunted by the memory. This was a wonderful write and I enjoyed the read.