James D. Dyer
The Cup and the Well
I fill the cups of others indeed
from a deep well inside me that
is never empty for long, and I
often drank from such cups both
metaphorically and actually, but
it has been too long too long since
I had a chalice worthy of spilling over,
and over, and so I seek the goddess
where I may in the spring of the year,
for the well is full to overflowing with
clear spring water, and is soaking the
ground around it and I cry in the wilderness
under the triple moon and wear the horns of
Cerrenos as I dance by the well under the stars
that are her children to the drums and pipes of
people long dead and I crave the blessing of
the mother and the maid and
even the lady of ravens though she fills me
with dread and echoing silences of the slain
off to the Summerlands again and the well
runs over the hill and streams down into
the valley in the ripe spring and nourishes
the moist earth that belongs to her, and I
sing of the hidden valleys and the ripe hills
and even the jagged mountains that are her
temper for I am the storm lord and I can still
her rages with that water as it runs down into
the deep valleys and nourishes her earth and
so the world is reborn through the rituals of
worship and endless rebirths of pleasure until
the world turns again and I die in the winter
again and am reborn in the spring of the year.
