#annie finch

[majestativa]

You haven’t formed me. I’m a monster still. [...] I am too dark to stain.

— Annie Finch, Spells: New and Selected Poems

[soulmaking]

[petaltexturedskies]

And the fall sun sinks soon, and the day draws to its dark end, and the feet give up the gray walk, no longer lingering, light gone, and I am here and do not go home.

Annie Finch, from Spells: New & Selected Poems; "Another Reluctance"

[exhalereleased]

"Still Life", Spells: New and Selected Poems by Annie Finch

[violettesiren]

May is here, come around, Find a place on the ground.

Find a place on the ground, and the flowers rain down.

And the flowers rain down. We are gorgeous today.

We are gorgeous today, We’re alive for the May.

We’re alive for the May, May is here. Come around.

A Wreath for Beltane by Annie Finch

[girlwithlandscape]

“Samhain” — Annie Finch

(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love, since it gives them leave to move through the wind, towards the ground they were watching while they hung, legend says there is a seam stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil earth from the sky in one last pale wave, as autumn dies to bring winter back, and then the spring, we who die ourselves can peel back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke. Tonight at last I feel it shake. I feel the nights stretching away thousands long behind the days till they reach the darkness where all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch move with me, and when I brush my own mind across another, I am with my mother's mother. Sure as footsteps in my waiting self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me, intimate, a waiting bounty. "Carry me." She leaves this trail through a shudder of the veil, and leaves, like amber where she stays, a gift for her perpetual gaze.

[dreamerwholikescoffee]

"I found the Muse in myself. And I loved Her fiercely."

Annie Finch

[kiki-de-la-petite-flaque]

I found the Muse in myself. And I loved Her fiercely.

— Annie Finch, from Among the Goddesses: An Epic; “Muse-Goddess”

[gwydionmisha]

Final Autumn - Annie Finch

Maple leaves turn black in the courtyard. Light drives lower and one bluejay crams our cold memories out past the sun, each time your traces come past the shadows and visit under my looking-glass fingers that lift and block out the sun. Come—I’ll trace you one final autumn, and you can trace your last homecoming into the snow or the sun.

[kayhi808]

Be kind to yourself.

[geezerwench]

The Veil Is Getting Thin

As I went out walking this fall afternoon,

I heard a wisper wispering.

I heard a wisper wispering,

Upon this fine fall day...

As I went out walking this fall afternoon,

I heard a laugh a'laughing.

I heard a laugh a'laughing,

Upon this fine fall day...

I heard this wisper and I wondered,

I heard this laugh and then I knew.

The time is getting near my friends,

The time that I hold dear my friends,

The veil is getting thin my friends,

And strange things will pass through.

(Annie Finch)

[majestativa]

These are the seasons Persephone promised as she turned on her heel; the ones that darken, till green no longer bandages what I feel.

— Annie Finch, Spells: New and Selected Poems

[soulmaking]

Annie Finch

[poemoftheday]

Poem of the Day 5 May 2024

A Letter to Daphnis

BY COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA ANNE FINCH

This to the crown and blessing of my life, 

The much loved husband of a happy wife; 

To him whose constant passion found the art 

To win a stubborn and ungrateful heart, 

And to the world by tenderest proof discovers 

They err, who say that husbands can’t be lovers. 

With such return of passion as is due, 

Daphnis I love, Daphnis my thoughts pursue; 

Daphnis my hopes and joys are bounded all in you. 

Even I, for Daphnis’ and my promise’ sake, 

What I in women censure, undertake. 

But this from love, not vanity, proceeds; 

You know who writes, and I who ’tis that reads. 

Judge not my passion by my want of skill: 

Many love well, though they express it ill; 

And I your censure could with pleasure bear, 

Would you but soon return, and speak it here. 

[ineedtoreadmorepoetry]

Samhain by Annie Finch

The Celtic Halloween

In the season leaves should love, since it gives them leave to move through the wind, towards the ground they were watching while they hung, legends says there is a seam stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil earth from the sky in one last pale wave, as autumn dies to bring winter back, and then the spring, we who die ourselves can peel back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke. Tonight at last I feel it shake. I feel the nights stretching away thousands long behind the days, till they reach the darkness where all of me is ancestor.

I turn my hand and feel a touch move with me, and when I brush my young mind across another, I have met my mother's mother. Sure as footsteps in my waiting self, I find her, and she brings

arms that have answers for me, intimate, a waiting bounty. "Carry me." She leaves this trail through a shudder of the veil, and leaves, like amber where she stays, a gift for her perpetual gaze.

[violettesiren]

I picked my way nearer along the shocking rock shelf, hoping the spray would rise up to meet me, myself.

Seagulls roared louder and closer than anything planned; I looked out to see and forgot I could still see the land.

Lost in a foaming green crawl, I grew smaller than me; shrunk in a tidepool, I heaved, and I wondered. The sea

grew like monuments for me. Each wave and its coloring shadow, bereft, wild and laden with wrack, spoke for me and had no

need of my words anymore. I was open and glad at last, grateful like seaweed and glad, since I had

no place on the rocks but a voice, and the voice was the sea’s: not my own. Just the sea’s.

Edge, Atlantic, July by Annie Finch