Hahp-E (Old sign: Aquarius) What started as the drip drip drip of loamy rainwater in the mosses and ferns clinging to the precipice of craggy lava rock has matured to a cascade of frothy rivulets. Feed feed the fertile crescents below! All the nurse logs and old stumps nurture the new life of lichens and turkeytails! Spring still feels far away but you needn’t waste time on the Bridge of Despair. Sigh, sigh Kentucky rye. Sent from a believer in the forest on high. Keep up being gracious, and the universe will provide!
Hehk-Eht (Old sign: Pisces) We wish that your passing is peaceful. Birth is not so. Birth is almost always dicey and difficult. How many seedlings and eggywegs make it to maturity? We would that no one experience the violent anxiety of untimely death and that you live as long as nature allows.
Kah-Le (Old sign: Aries) Bloody pentangle, the green sash and a rusted out claymore are your talismans to summon the ghost of Gawain. You prepare the wine and the blood, rosehips and cattails. Are you ready to let him go? All the toil and trouble? All the fretting and fainting and crooning? Maybe it’s time to wish his spirit well and both be on your way!
Ah-Naht (Old sign: Taurus) A broken branch, upturned leaves, a shower of pine needles and a clawed up stump, these are the signs you read in the twilight. No footprints to speak of. The sounds of the crepuscular starting their evening travails!
Eh-Shu (Old sign: Gemini) Any trace of the wake of the steamer disappears in the briny green and now you are alone with only a life preserver and your heartbeat pounding out time in your temples. Was that a fish at your foot or something more? Your mind can summon all the terrors of the deep in an instant but what of the brine? How long before the meat on your bones starts to prune and tenderize? How long has it been since you had a drink? Are the beasts just waiting for you to finish marinating?
Tah-Na (Old sign: Cancer) You read the signs correctly and are presently dividing the hide of your quarry, but you can barely focus on the task at hand without thinking of your next prize.
Marutuk (Old sign: Leo) You stood back and watched the illusion with self-contented bemusement. While you were judging the actors on the stage and patting yourself on the back, you missed the opportunity to evaluate yourself.
Kah-Noom (Old sign: Virgo) What caused all this stress and havoc? You did.
Hih-Fes-Tuhs (Old sign: Libra) Even now in midwinter you are dreading the return of Labor Day. Time away from your craft and your tools of the craft. The tools are an extension of your body and mind. To hang them up for even a moment gives you the existential panic of one about to lose a limb. You imagine the doldrums of twenty four hours alone with your mind and you feel desperate. The warm grip of the hammer and the weight of the material, these qualities soothe you! The pleasant ergonomics of your station and the satisfaction of the process. Whatever will you do with the monkeys in your mind?
Ter (Old sign: Scorpio) Death is always nigh gathering minions and slicing compass-wise through the golden fields of harvest. You made it through another day but will you outlast the night?
Shang-Te (Old sign: Sagittarius) Now that your king is gone how will you proceed as an emissary? His scepter has no power in your hands. His throne crumbed with the hysterical parapets above his crown. You are subject to none, and it is terrifying.
Gih-Na-Sha (Old sign: Gih-Na-Sha) You’ve tried to elevate the conversation at the bar, at the dinner table, by the watercooler and during the sports match. Now you feel discouraged. Talking about Shakespeare authorship and Verrocchio and the memories of golden birds of halcyon boughs did not spark the interest you had expected. Disappointing and unexpected turns to baser topics make you tune people out and now you wonder whether you are going deaf.