Witchcraft: A home of questioning
I
What does tenderness mean to an owl?
What does courage mean to a dying cat?
Do not tell me there is an iron curtain
between instinct and intellect.
Every day collects sleep for the evening bouquet
to put in the water of a particular night
wordless roots in the pillow, in the duvet
play with each morning’s spring, nesting.
What does self-respect mean to a squirrel?
What does honesty mean to a wolf?
What kind of dignity still lies hidden on bridges
and who wants to go there before some face has too many mouths?
Sometimes dreams seem to work up an appetite
for flooding certain areas of daily habits, tics of routine,
they weigh in on conversations waiting to happen and
only possible in front of the sea, waves in the cheekbones.
What does instinct mean to a human?
What does protection mean to a hero?
A life’s work towards more intimacy
with spheres slowly bursting, towards another homecoming.
Protected by the love of mysteries
every moment is a boat for a collector
sailing into a night of potential, lips wet
from kissing the liquids of memories.
What does holy mean to a raven?
What does trust mean to a seahorse?
Let the iron curtains fall because
there are too many fearful ghosts today.
Greetings, you with such a subtle pulse
can you teach me new names about hauntings?
How can I translate that my readiness is in full bloom
or maybe I can just say I am honoured by this questioning.
What does peace mean to a mountain?
What does generosity mean to rain clouds?
Every knot in the rope, a tiger’s muscle
ready to jump before being trapped
in a museum of reductions, the tightening
of all stories’ hearts.
II
What does being homeless mean to a common swift?
What does a private life mean to a mouse?
Expired passports are still being handed out.
Ever-changing definitions of borders follow the money.
Someone is trying to sell cynicism as just being reasonable
while others are trying to survive serious mental illness.
And many people demand higher penalties for using illegal drugs
while using all the legal ones to feel functional, which can mean numb.
What does a job interview mean to a giraffe?
What does loneliness mean to a polar bear?
Were you also told to never ask too many questions?
As if not being inquiring had some value in itself?
No wonder I felt haunted by a ghost that looked like me.
I was waiting for someone to make an interview but no one ever did.
Scars showed but I was in the dark about the wounds.
Disappearing through a black hole became a comfort zone.
What does trauma mean to an animal in the zoo?
What does imprisonment mean to someone who has never been out?
The astonishment those chimpanzees felt when they saw snow
for the first time ever, after having lived their entire lives in a lab.
Belief in an almighty authority is threatening lives just like
other beliefs in a sudden technological fix, divine intervention,
we are not omnipotent managers, nor owners, here,
we need more peace with ourselves while expressing our lives.
III
We can honour the questions in each other's eyes with tenderness
but we need to be wild. We need to whip up the darkness in us with
no mercy. Fear of the dark will get us nowhere. Let us go into the nights
with our heads held high. This is the pride of the spine. This is the pride of
being alive. This is the old horned god preparing the fire for the Phoenix
spirit. This is the smoke cleansing the bones. This is the reversed exorcism
where the evil of interfering in a process is truly exposed. This is
surrendering to an ocean of darkness and sparks. This is a drowning and a
reincarnation via trust through movement. This is the witch reborn for all
eternity. This is the animist collecting experience with openings. This is
the pagan being nature.
IV
At the end of a dream there was a home.
And at the end of a home there was a dream.
They walked side by side every day, every hour,
collecting challenges and reliefs, chores and gifts,
sacrifices of a solitary kind and peace of mind
to find each other in the dark and in the light.
There were waves next to the pavement
oceans had replaced roads, and a frozen city started asking:
Who are you, who are you?
As they passed it, confused but stubborn.
One night, while camping in an abandoned amusement park
they started yelling, just yelling out in the open, the anger of
being told that they were just a dream and just a home exploded,
those fireworks finally found their fire and were ignited.
V
What does music mean in a dream?
What do words mean in a song?
In a short dream I saw kings deliberately getting rid of
their crowns, letting them transform in the forest floor.
Their power studies, and possible abuse, returned to nature’s archive.
A dream home exposed in all autumn leaves’ colours.
And some not seen but sensed do work of such importance
those who deny their existence are really scared blind.
What does madness mean to a dolphin?
What does meditation mean to a hummingbird?
Do truly absurd questions really exist?
Or is it just a need for a limited mind?
Respect for an unpredictable journey
is the acknowledgment of infinite life
and the languages with which we test the waters,
then dive deep in our diving bells, our dream homes.
What does joy mean to a brook?
What time is it for the bumblebee?
Now here is another morning in a human nest,
time to get up and greet a new day, a new night.
Rune Kjær Rasmussen
is an animist, writer, singer, and occasional painter from Denmark.