Thieves and Dancers

a spell under the elder tree

Elderberries near the stream, 24 August 2023.

This wine has all the weight

of fruit in it, weight of long days,

sticky and rich with iron, blood

sour with memory. It soothes my throat.

I picked those berries in another time

a sunlit day, with women

I no longer see. The elderberries hung

like grapes; their branches sagged,

snapped as we tugged them free, three

women under the green eye of the hill,

that massive mound built by the elder

tribe, the dark ones, thieves and dancers.

Hilary Llewellyn-Williams, from Elder in The Tree Calendar