The Crone’s Secret
A poem by Jennifer Lagier

The Crone’s Secret

A wise woman evolves from once-nubile nymphette,
shelters in the heart of a forest,
communes with foxes, squirrels, racoons.

She is apple-faced, enfolded in pansy print fabric.
White egrets flap across her bandanna.
She wears a gown of wing-spread doves, viola blooms.

Mother, maiden, goddess, she wraps fern cloak
around withered arms, angular shoulders.
Camouflaged by fissured tree bark, she merges with pines.

Wizened enchantress whispers ancient secrets
born of fin, fur, feather, cartilage, bone,
inscribes incantations for bewitchment, fertility.

Seer, healer, midwife, she pirouettes around popping fire.
On nights the moon swells, hangs in inky firmament,
she invokes fecund mysteries, calls forth buried life.



About the Author:

Jennifer Lagier lives a block from the stage where Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar during the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. She taught with California Poets in the Schools, edits the Monterey Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Jennifer has published nineteen books, most recently: Meditations on Seascapes and Cypress (Blue Light Press), COVID Dissonance (CyberWit), Camille Chronicles (FutureCycle Press), Moonstruck (CyberWit). Forthcoming: Weeping in the Promised Land (Kelsay Books), Postcards from Paradise (Blue Light Press).

Website: jlagier.net

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/

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