And All Things Returning Poem by GORDON GILHULY

twilight
her sky-shaped gown spread shamelessly
before the final golden tongue of the sun
closes her eyes in the ecstasy of descending darkness;
blue shadows climb the wooded slopes of the mountains
like hands modelling the shape of a lover's thighs,
the dark and dulcet night holding this small world tightly
in her mother arms exhales, tentatively, leaving
her tears on the meadow grass

the virgin sunflowers with their father's eyes
have ended their slow steady search of the skies
and, with anticipation, wait for the sweet cacaphony
that becomes each evening's symphony
each night's plainsong of praise
but no songs comes.

the evening's softness yields to the hardness
of the moon, the chatter of the stream catches
in its throat, slows its rush, quietly murmurs
apologies to the void and the wind quiets its
lascivious moans in the ears of the leaves,
its whispers of sweet nothings falter, fade away
into the deafness of the night.

and now, the whole earth drops to its knees
like ancient Sodom praying for forgiveness,
while through the listless and defeated air
through a rising swirling fog in which
the world constantly creates and erases itself
they come:

the bearers of words that ring like gongs
that tumble and clatter like wind chimes
made of human bones;
words like steaming offal, that fume and stink
trailing their streamers of judgement:
the Horned One: Lord of the Wild Hunt, Guardian of the Dead
his hooded robe a black hole in the charcoal night;
the Crone: Goddess of Death and Rebirth
her primordial beauty like the edge of a sharpened scythe.

the portal has opened and all things returning
on this hallowed evening