A Mabon Crown
By Annie Finch
For Mabon (fall equinox), Sept. 21
Our voices press
from us
and twine
around the year's
fermenting wine
Yellow fall roars
Over the ground.
Loud, in the leafy sun that pours
Liquid through doors,
Yellow, the leaves twist down
as the winding
of the vine
pulls our curling
voices—
Glowing in wind and change,
The orange leaf tells
How one more season will alter and range,
Working the strange
Colors of clamor and bells
In the winding
of the vine
our voices press out
from us
to twine
When autumn gathers, the tree
That the leaves sang
Reddens dark slowly, then, suddenly free,
Turns like a key,
Opening air where they hang
and the winding
of the vine
makes our voices
turn and wind
with the year’s
fermented wine
One of the hanging leaves,
Deeply maroon,
Tightens its final hold, receives,
Finally weaves
Through, and is covered soon
in the winding
of the vine—
Holding past summer's hold,
Open and strong,
One of the leaves in the crown is gold,
Set in the cold
Where the old seasons belong.
Here is my crown
Of winding vine,
Of leaves that dropped,
That fingers twined,
another crown
to yield and shine
with a year’s
fermented wine.
Copyright Credit: Annie Finch, "A Mabon Crown" from Spells, published by Wesleyan Press. Copyright © 2013 by Annie Finch. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Source: Spells (Tupelo Press)