wildscape. literary journal

|FEN| dawn history
by Kate MacAlister

my dark mother covered the land

                                 in salt, a flood

then came the decay, a sinking,

then the fern seeds, the stories  and  ancient unsettling

fog           a thick shroud for a living,

                                 seething burial site. I sleep

with a  mouth full of moss, and I wake

with a mouth full of rain; thirst.

something in this water catches  the ghosts

they are drawn to the lichenlight

& the old songs begin to walk

                                 here          wordless, gorseful hymns—

& every crossroad within me is a haunting choice

|FEN| vesper vesper
by Kate MacAlister

the sound
petrichoral:
we begin

with the old call to prayer:
calm your heart, place a hag stone
a snail shell, beneath your tongue.

taste the body of the water, swallow
the blood of the goddess here
frondescence sweeter than the calcareous

altarwine. the women never stopped
worshipping what cries deep inside
the night rasping; glory be to the dirt

& the wolf’s-bane, the holy bog moss.
as in the beginning, so now and always
and until the bones are gilded with guilt

about the author // Kate MacAlister