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Daughter of Night
Ranked first among Thine
agonies
That one so lovely should go
cowled.
Early March.
Cold rains have crossed
California
Then rolled over the Sierras and dipped
down upon us,
And six straight days chilled Las
Vegas.
These cold rains, then carried East along
the high wind,
And did great mischief there;
Snow lies two feet deep and more all up
the seaboard.
Back here, back West, the Valley lies
refreshed.
At midweek there had been a tight seam of
heat inside two cold days,
And Saturday we burst into the
seventies.
Tonight, the summit of Mount
Charleston,
The high point of Earth in this broad
County;
The crooked Moon hangs above, just off
the peak of black Night.
Hekate's, the crooked Moon, that slices
even Night.
The Moon is framed, off-center, by the
silhouetted tips of the bristlecone pines,
That sprouted when quick girls still
dared bulls at Minos.
No longer even a green blush now within
that soft mass;
The pines are but blacker shapes against
black Night,
Jagged in the corners of my sight, the
stars all hid behind.
While, below, warm spring sunlight has
stroked Las Vegas,
Then soothed it with cool
winds,
It is white winter here atop Mount
Charleston,
Where the cloudwater fell as it would
fall two thousand miles east,
As snow.
Winter had entered the valley as a nymph
in white taffetta, billowing through Night;
She drifted southeast, sailing among the
clouds,
Snagged underneath by the tips of all the
Sierras,
And above,
Snagged also upon the crooked
Moon;
The winter nymph here has paid due
tribute
To Hekate,
Then flowed eastward in a shredded
gown.
Mount Charleston, as the tall peak, has
snagged its own big patch off the gown,
And I am standing here, one man among two
amid white snow,
And I am black, like Hekate,
And the hounds,
Here, cast against white snow,
as
Above, on white moondust. I look now with
all my eyes
And behold, the splash of dogprints in
the snow.
Io Hekate, Daughter of Night
Ahead, three roads crossing, and She
knows the steepest way.
Io Hekate, Daughter of Night
Priced steep is Her wisdom, and only the
hard can pay.
For the Moon, and Nevada, are two great
concaves toward each other,
Split by black broad space
As great palms outspread in the
Night,
So that the Moon, and Nevada, are not
aimless wanderers;
They are pinned,
Such that that tight cislunar space has
sprung five whirlpools,
And close upon Nevada, encircling the
Earth, a skin of gathered Sunfire.
I leave bootprints in the snow atop the
mountain, as
Above, in that white sliver dangled amng
distant stars
There are boot prints studded in the Moon
dust.
Io Hekate, Daughter of Night
Ahead, three roads crossing, and She
knows the steepest way.
Io Hekate, Daughter of Night
Priced steep is Her wisdom, and only the
hard can pay.
Hers is the Moon, and especially the
crooked Moon.
Hers that part of Dionysos' sap that
poisons and heals.
Hers is the jellyfish sting.
And that bright droplet off the rattler's
fang,
That inside itself is whirling as it
dangles there.
Hers, the thirst for riches, that gives
focus to spirit,
Hers, the hymen between salesman and
closer,
And the big red X on the
board.
Hers, the black and the red of the
dice.
Hers, the garlic bulb,
That is poison unto poison itself, and
thereby heals.
Hers, my recent trade of blood against
poverty,
And that blood pays cheap.
Hers the nuggets still dug deep in the
land, unpicked,
Waiting,
And the black oil that is the pressed rot
of ancient flesh,
And that pools and surges within the
Earth,
Then sails the broad seas in ships more
numerous
Than breadcrumbs strewn before an
audience of birds,
And all, because it burns.
Hers the honorific, Nigger, that is the
curse, and delight, of my people,
The choice of Black, and the weight
inside that choice,
That may not now be unchosen. For we now
are Hers,
And Her grip will not be
broken.
Hers the dark shining in the
abyss,
Earth's bowels burst hot through the
ocean floor,
Hers the weird dark forests that thrive
there,
In the pressure.
Hers the ice and the metal in the
Moon.
Hid beneath deep rock, yet there is no
hiding
From the torchlight.
Hers, the quarter million miles of cold
death.
Hers is that knowing of woman that woman
may only know
By knowing herself, and among the
herbs.
Hers, the mystique of woman.
I know a lady the color of moonlight on
bundled wood.
People are dying in her dreams who aren't
dead yet.
That comes afterward, and
soon.
I have yet to touch the lady.
One day I shall.
Under Night,
Winding down the mountain
road.
My friend and I observe upon the city,
art, and blackjack.
She
I cannot long speak of.
She
Is not yet fully speakable in this
time.
But down in that great splash of lights
below
Mine is not the only candle
lit
For Hekate. Yes,
Were She to, with a wave of Her
hand,
Snuff the brilliant plumage of the
Strip,
And Downtown's yellow-white
gleaming,
Were She then to shut down the straggler
lights of Summerlin,
Of North Las Vegas,
And leave only candles lit for
Gods
The valley floor would at first lie black
as the ring of mountains
Before Apollo brings them forth with the
morning.
The valley floor would at first lie
black,
But in time the eyes would focus, and
soon make out
Pricks of light, only several, but
definite.
Scattered, and yet a
gathering,
Witness to the returning of the
time.
It is growing warmer down the
slope.
We descend from winter toward
spring.
But now two fingers on my right hand are
struck cold.
Cold has climbed up my
knuckles,
Till taking fingernail to lips, I find it
ice.
I remind myself of my good
health
Yet can not not ask, Which does this
mean?
Stroke or heart attack?
No. It is that She has taken my
hand.
She who comes and goes in
dread.
I am honored. I will choose something
fine tomorrow
To set before the purple
candle.
Io Hekate, Daughter of Night
Ahead, three roads crossing, and She
knows the steepest way.
Io Hekate, Daughter of Night
Priced steep is Her wisdom, and only the
hard can pay.
.
In Your Honor. Todd Jackson
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