When we were witches, the wind would cry at the window pane.
The house would breathe in and out of the cracks like a flute:
Vuuuuu, cheeeee sighed the wind
We nodded, hummmm, oooooooh!
When we were witches, we were used to invisible things.
We rode currents and swirls, hidden zephrys carried us
and whispered: Iris, Iris!
Violets in the cool damp grasses
lifted a quivering fragrance when we noticed them growing
in rings. There were cats that went in and out of our dimension.
Cats on the wind! we said. It wasn’t unlikely to be startled
by yellow eyes, blinking in and out like blurry stars.
These days we say: Light is a particle and a wave.
When we were witches, we didn’t have to say that.
When we were witches, it wasn’t our idea. It wasn’t a pursuit. It wasn’t
our identity. We look at us then from us here and now we name it: We were witches!
But not then. When we were witches we just had the night to ourselves.
Every night!
There wasn’t a night that didn’t belong to us.
Dusk came along, waving the flag of our colors:
Purple, copper, rose and gold. Fluorescent peach!
A cloud parade might ensue. We didn’t analyze the shapes, we just said ahhhhhhh!
Then the moon would rise in our chests and the sky at the same time.
The moon shapes were an invisible language that we knew by heart.
Then came the gentlest, best part.
Our chests, each one of our chests would slowly open -
One by one and all together,
a flicker, a twinkler, a spark.
Out came the treasure, gleaming and swirling: cups, bears, dragons, fish!
When we were witches
we were the guardians of starlight.
And you know what else? When we were witches, we were never lonely.
Our longing was the same as the sun’s or the fox, or the milkweed.
We could summon the tide with the power of our intention.
We knew that sea foam was the churned essence of the water element -
not dead mermaids, like we sometimes think now.
Our lives were braided to trees, lakes, bonfires.
Now that we are always looking back, or looking forward, we unravel ourselves in time and forget the innocence of this longing.
Instead, we call it bad names and we punish ourselves.
We didn’t do that when we were witches.
We turned in circles because of joy, not confusion.
When we were witches, we died smiling. We died like the morning.
We just rose up with the light and went to work.