Mabon
Happy Mabon
Summer went by in a hazy blur.
How simple those days, how sweet they were.
Full of vacations, gardens, and painted cabinets,
When my only worry was a hefty down payment.
I’d do it all again, not an ounce of regret,
If it meant one more month by her side, well-spent.
Today begins the next season’s call,
The autumn equinox, the first day of fall.
Mabon returns, I remember her so clear,
The first Sabbat of my first pagan year.
Four years gone, they feel like a lifetime,
A heartbroken prayer was uttered that night.
I bought fall decor, baked bread, and made stew.
Struggling with purpose, becoming brand new.
Alone in a place I couldn’t yet call home,
Where I look back now and see how much I’ve grown.
Where all my friends departed, each miles apart,
Leaving me to struggle with my reluctant start.
Devin, Caroline, Creston, and Sean,
Even Lorenzo — life still moved on.
A new degree, a job that was unsure.
A path uncharted, one I had to endure.
Funny how life, now, circles back into view,
And brings with it a clarity I never thought I knew.
A misguided, overweight, scared little kid,
Drinking rum and blacking out on the carpet.
Staring up at the ceiling, wishing things were still the same,
Now I thank every force that allowed them to change.
Funny how you always want to stay right where you are,
But time teaches us all that we must travel far.
New jobs, new friends, new degrees.
A new love for banjos, birds, and swinging trees.
Unbeknownst to me, there would come a time,
When I would free myself from the constant cries.
When I would dance again, on two left feet,
And learn to pace, sing, write my way out of grief.
How many people have loved me since then?
Even when, last Mabon, I swore I’d never love again.
How many friends have come and since left?
Each one a memory to be cherished and kept.
I have learned the definitions of love and loss,
And would gladly learn again, no matter the cost.
Four years of joy, grief, sadness, love,
Poetry, parkways, picnics, and mourning doves.
Breakfast on decks, hangovers, birthdays,
Grad school, weed bongs, and hurricanes.
Now, here I am, a new place, a new heartbreak.
Still the same habit: “Why can’t things stay the same?”
But what would have happened if I had settled and stayed?
Content with a life devoid of growth and change.
Would I feel genuine love? Would I still be a poet?
I mustn’t wrestle with pain; instead, try to know it.
I accept this life, in all of its waves.
I understand change comes with a few growing pains.
On this Mabon, like the last, I accept where I am,
And know just cause I’m broken, doesn’t mean I can’t mend.
In my brand-new place, with new friends and new things.
New ways to laugh, dance, love, and sing.
I will make new memories with new and old friends,
And know I will love and be loved again.
Last Mabon, I thought my life was coming to an end,
Not knowing that my path was only starting to bend.
Happy Mabon.