What the world expects
of me a haggard crone!
As if my tired hand could turn
A ladle in a nasty iron pot
propped on an outdoor fire
between my mean hut and the coral
And in some recitation recoup
a miracle from boiling chicken soup


Just was May Day's glorious blooming,
brought blessed promise of life's renewal,
to the high hills my dale engirding.
The sun stood its watch on high
As I knitted shaded on my porch
Watching the lonely trail.

I would weave a scarf
for brutal winter my aches foretold
When the King's man, a reeve,
emerging from a cloud of dust
brushed into my presence
His boots pounding an air of
confident authority and arrogance.


He imperiously presented impetuously
his boot to my worm worn planks
As a token of greeting.
As I stared at the star
planted on his waistcoat,
the sacred pentacle,
a symbol of the earth and its life force,
"life giving life."

Blushing he returned my glance
in total consternation
before he officiously prated
"I hope I nae offend you.
I need your help
straight away."


"No worse than any other."
I dropped my knitting
in my lap before I would retort
"Churchmen with their howling
grasp powers not conferred
But no kingsman ever
stole tokens of nature's authority."

I shuddered in disgust
"You come a long way
State a purpose if you must."


"Take a full second
Help me in my grief
Stir your ladle wisely
and I'll thank you eternally."


I looked at him in earnest
at a disheveled waistcoat and shirt.
"Should I wash your linen
An imposition Shire-reef
Take your rags to a dwarf
and be off with you."

He bowed his visage
and removing his floppy hat
"Wish it were that simple,
I'd never troubled you.
My fair daughter taken
Held against her will
Shuttered in a castle
of the King's evil steward."


"Your wish be granted," I yawned a reply,
What do you offer the Earth Mother
in exchange for such a prize.?"


His face blanched
its features firmed and fired,
"Nae mother, you must realize,
my faith, ever strong in service,
fixed on the one Lord everlasting."

"And," I graced him with a smile,
"And I serve him too, especially.
All creatures have a father,
who teaches them to be bold,
but they have a mother
for balance and temperance."


The Shire-reef held his ears and cried,
"Even for my fair daughter
Good Mother, your price is high.
I cannot court perdition
from such evil I must shrink
How could I face my daughter
if I am damned for eternity."

Shaking my head slow,
I retorted without reproof
"Seek one of your churchmen
fair mind and smart
who wears the coarse robes
with a purity of heart."


I gently clasped the Shire-reef's hands.
He fought back tears, trembling.
For a moment I sensed his fears and terror,
before he reared like a horse
and fled into a dusty cloud
bound for wherever.

Midsummer treated my fold
with life's bounty in full bloom,
Visitors calling for her herbs and cures
Spying me at my boiling kettle
looked as if some gold
might spring from an iron pot.


To their wonder, I replied in glee,
"What ever magic you find there
is not easy to surmise
Whatever magic you leave with,
is something you invent,
To you, it's an exotic potion
To me it's Chicken soup."

On dusty day of late summer
as shadows drew deep,
my winter soups consumed me
stocking winter stores.
Why my quiet was broken
by a sandstorm in the distance
and the thundering of many hoofs.


Halting at the clearing,
the horses snorted dust
and arrayed into a phalanx
seemingly ready to pounce.


The Shire-reef dismounted
and emerged from the haze
His magic star tarnished
with tiny granulates of earth.

As he drew close to my circle,
I shouted him out a greeting
"Shire-reef you are welcome,
in hospitality,
and I offer you
a portion of my humble feast."


Looking toward his posse
I continued with a sigh
"I have hardly enough
to feed a small army."

"Tough times have seized us,"
The Shire-reef, his look turned grim.
"The realm seethes with discontent."
Kicking at the dust, he groaned,
"Daring rebels among us
Invite barbarians to plunder."


I shook my head sadly,
"If my humble porridge
contributes to your cause
take it now, take it all.:

"Nae, Great Mother, I have no need of soup"
His voiced turned in anger
"The steward who stole my daughter
in evil deserves damnation.
But in this dire peril
He wields the King's sword bravely.
And even churchmen tremble
We must stay the course
Set by the valiant steward."
The Shire-reef's eyes flashed in rage
"As despicable as he may be."


I felt the rage discomforting
But I harnessed its life force
As I looked to yonder kettle
He asked about the broth.
"To some the kettle is magic"
I said with twinkling eyes
"To its power they are called.
To others it's the sources
of nothing more than nourishment,
Join us in chicken soup."

At that the surface calmed.
And an image floated from the deep.
A dark haired beauty with luscious curls
blinked sharp sad eyes at him.


I nodded to the Shire-reef
As I gazed upon the pot,
"Still others find joy and sorrow.
Speak to her if you will."


Transfixed by the image,
the Shire-reef's eyes boiled
half in wonder, half in rage,
"Is what I'm seeing real
Or is it an artifice?"


"I create no graven images,
In me, there is no power
You see what eyes cannot find
but linger in the heart."

In horror, he recoiled,
almost tipping the pot
"Nae in league with unclean spirits,
It's perdition you vend.
Thank your Goddess deeply,
Churchmen turned me away."


The image evaporated in boiling broth,
As I stared about in dismay,
The Shire-reef rejected salvation
for the sake of purity.


The Shire-reef by giant steps
gracefully leaped to his horse.
His posse rode away.
When I turned from their dusty wake
the daughter to me returned.


The Shire-reef's love was great.
Even from a distance, his will invoked the image.
In his absence it would linger.

My own heavy heart felt power swelling,
a call to all life forms,
In ecstasy I could break the bondage
even without the Shire-reef's assent.


With eyelids shutting out temptation,
my muscles and guts resisting,
I invoked the power of the Goddess
to dispel the image
and left the daughter in her chains.


The festival of life paused
For the moment before autumn's showers
the trees, brush and crops
stretched before the summer sun.


Before the lazy days of August
yield to drizzly fall,
small puffs on the horizon
announced another call.

From the small clouds gathering
emerged a brown robed man
When he reached my clearing
centering on a mule,
he raised his hand in peace,
"Pax vobiscum to you."


"Hail mother," he beckoned
How peaceful is this valley
protected by hills steep enough
to keep the world's rumbling without."


A smile came upon me.
I need not squinting and gawk.
The caller was my friend,
a pleasant mendicant.


"Good father," I responded
"You are bidden welcome here
and offered every comfort
in my humble keep."

The monk smiled pleasantly
until I drove home my point,
"Right at the moment, I marvel
a situation truly unique:
Where both are titled parents
without children at their feet."


Flush red filled the monk's jowly cheek,
as he rocked on his mule,
"Not for us to chiper riddles,
of the goodness we instill."


"I said the same to the King's man,
the brave Shire-reef,
When hither he did come.
No more valiant a man
Yet he fled
forbearing wisdom I reveal."

"In a world much imperiled,"
The monk climbed from the saddle,
"Men see Satan's hand
in a castoff pot."


Sampling the broth heartily
the pleasant monk said,
"God the King is fretful
over war breaking out.
with enemies pressing
a general attack
no forces can he spare
to chase for shadows
in a wrought iron pot."


The monk lifted a ladle
after cautiously poking the pot
drew a taste of soup.

"And the King's steward,"
he slurped with enthusiasm
"Ever valiant in the King's cause.
The King shows little inkling,
detesting as he may,
for tarnishing the steward's name."


"And then I am perplexed
I who would undo a wrong
am protected not by good
I would have willingly wrought
but by evil the good steward devilishly brought about."


At supper before breaking bread
The goodly monk bowed low,
"Thank you my redeemer,
God's only begotten son."

I added to his invocation
with righteous ceremony,
"I join you in your blessing
to the forces of life,
till we celebrate together,
the festival of the sun."


The monk looked timidly
but rejoined in a smile,
"As long as one is the other
So the two remain."


"I cannot say for others
Only to guide them with their heart."
I answered in a wink
"What they see in iron pots
is what they find by themselves."

Following the monk's departure
No pilgrims followed him.
Halloween crept silently
Under a bloodied moon.
Quickly followed the solstice
with a vacant sky.


If celestial light departed,
Not so the forces of man
Who on the high hills sparkled
the candles of 1000 lights.

Spring's life surge opened
In an eerie calm
When birds who refused to sing
were replaced by trumpeteers.
From the campfires smoldering
came a night of screams
When fate was decided
and silence crept a return.


May's morn' came upon us,
the festival of life,
Instead of celebrations
I went to bury the dead.


With calm's upon us,
summer's fore taste, the budlets struggling into bloom,
forecast a bumper crop in store
Despite the promise of earthly reward,
a good Mother, in the wheel of seasons,
still cans soups for the fall.

I stirred my long wooden ladle
in the rusty pot
until I noticed riders
descending from the ridge.


It was the haggard's Shire-reef,
his hair bleached white by dust
and at his side fully a stride
a bobbing weary mule
sat my friend the learned mendicant
very overwrought too.


The Shire-reef staggered forward at a hesitant gait
his horse assured, nipping at the bit
and doffing his flopping hat, with a sigh,
the Shire-reef enunciated,
"Mother, my search for deserters yielded on Army of the Dead.
For me it's a detail of burial.
For Father a time of prayer."

The Father's little donkey sauntered to my trough,
While the good Father jovially joined us.
"I bring you news, Mother.
The Kingdom faced its test
and its resolve carried the day,
The battle done, the victory won
left our steward dead."


I scoured the horizon for inspiration
Before granting a reply,
"The world of men is much complex.
The good may founder,
While evil achieves their end."


"Evil's dead," the Shire-reef snorted
"While it's memory casts a shadowy plague.
To wipe out all recollection
of the heroic steward's excess
the King decreed
his victims into exile."

"Through my good office," Father hesitated,
"I secured leniency."
Father paused with determined jaw,
"The daughter survives
protected in peace and prayer
immured in a nunnery."
Father paused eyes agape,
"The Holy Church, with souls to save,
takes this resolution
a gift of faith's generosity."


"This resolution is obscene,"
the Shire-reef roared in anger.
"It sends my line to perdition.
My daughter barren
leaves none of me and mine to posterity
She is my only child."

The Father, gritting his teeth,
muttered under his breath,
"Ungrateful blasphemer!"
Give him what he wants
A special place in Hell.
Denied his place in heaven."


As the Shire-reef pointed to my pot,
in anger with clear command,
the hissing, boiling stopped.
In his rage he called the image of his daughter
a slender girl draped in brown with a veiled face.


The monk aghast, shrunk in horror,
his face bleached salten white.
He hid his eyes and fumbled in his robes
for a medallion
Blessing himself, he gave a plaintive yelp,
"Evil for good and good for evil
Give him what he seeks."

"Nae great Friar," I insisted.
"There's no power special to me.
I call or focus the power of life
to the will of the Goddess ---
The Shire-reef must call on her himself.


"Say it Mother and thy will be done,"
The ashed friar pleaded.
"Act quickly
before unclear sprite
lurk about and frolic."


"To call upon the Goddess,"
I sadly shook my head,
"is to look within oneself,
for the slender piece
of her great design.
For me to speak his piece,
I would inscribe a part of me."

The Shire-reef closed his eyes
and whispered a silent prayer,
I kneeled at his feet,
"If you can't call her by name,
Use the name by which you know her,
The name they use in church."


The image in the kettle abided
as the Shire-reef rode away,
leaving the cowardly Friar
blanketed in dust.


And as I peered at what the kettle had retained,
I waved my hand in prayer calmly,
"Her life force too vibrant for a mendicant life,
She belongs no more in convent that here with me."


The image haunts me forever
between the iron rim.
I muttered my blessing
and then set her free.

Another change of season
found me knitting on my wheel,
when the good Father on donkey propped
made an embarrassed return.


"News of the kingdom," the good Father announced
"Since its deliverance
it bustles with festivity
and joyous gala balls."


Turning from my chores
I looked at Father in surprise
"You speak of affairs of state,
but not the Shire-reef's daughter
What became of her?"


The monk drew a tender breath
sweating beads of perspiration,
"As if you didn't know,
the girl was expelled from sanctuary
and returned home
with the kindly blessing."

"And you indict me, good Father,
for affairs of Church
As I am unwelcome there,
I hardly would interfere."


"No good Mother.
You have a certain flair
in imposing your solution.
The girl gained a special place
in affairs of state.
She carries the Steward's heir."