The Witch

I came across her
in the lonely wood,
rank nettles upon her
breath, her body of earth,
ditch water her blood.

She rose dazed
from the decaying
leaves and dust,
floating in her
dazzling dreams,
the wet sunlight
through her veins,
her gold and silver rings
her pendant charms of leaves,
her robes festooned and stained
with wild grass and weeds.

Her old soul eyes
of indigo and crystal,
rat grey and anthracite
full of shadows and ancient curse,
the eyes of the cat and owl
that haunt the wicked liar,
flaming spirits that sear the soul
and burn the black crows,
that taint the light,
that torch the treacherous
old familiars with tar,
sun and fire.

She bound me in her
yellow grass curls
tied with hemlock and mandrake,
a sideways glance
through hooded eye,
raw with hunger for spite
calculating as a snake.

She led me to her altar
a tumulous barrow tomb,
opened her book of shadows
and hurled fury at the
waning, crescent moon.

In amulets of sulphur, runes
and arabic gum,
coffin nails of the damned
and graveyard dust,
she summoned a heinous
horned god and beast,
that rose from the earth
as a crooked, gnarled black tree,
to haunt in league in her lamps
of wild green,
the odour of carrion came upon 
the earth, dark, deep,
a portent of the obscene.

To the village I returned
in scarecrow rags, tatty and torn,
dazed in dirt and dragging dregs,
she came with the rain
and the tolling bell,
clumsy on old spider legs.
In her soul a black cat lurked,
the great owl mourned
and the lonely night burned.