A Witch Poem by MARINA GIPPS

With my last rite of passage,
catching you midflight,
a sad sorcery.

Invisible
within seasons
gone, sinful to this earth
conjuring spirits, discerning
the fate of nations.

I transmute
all metal to gold,
all water to blood
red wine...

They call me a witch,
bless them,
for my harvest is less
than plentiful,
my men-dwarved.

(Bedroom herbs to forget my belladonna eyes.)

Call me
what they may
for divination
is a sore thumb
I raise to the wind
wet and wondering

Which storm shall follow me tonight.
Only a witch, a ghost of a dead
philosopher entrailed
after brewing notions of love.

Myself, most coy,
intermediary between
the villagers and the will
of nature.

Light and dark,
I love the land of that horned god.
Protecting the lights of Naples
from that stubborn
leech plague,
with one golden beetle
as my copper hands
(conductors of heat now cold)
wave the way.