Celtic Sister Closing her emerald eyes She gently touches her harp The smooth wood under her fingers brings her satisfaction and reassurance Cold Mountain air teases her hair The ancient Highland Child begins to play The harp sends waves of warmth through her and she starts to croon Sweet soprano notes rise and fall amid the elegant, snow-covered ridges high above The forgotten Druid songs her mother taught her begin to ring out from her crystal throat Spirits of the Celtic Sisterhood awaken deep in her heart Lacing and weaving intricately into her lyrics Spinning dreams out of their ghostly substance Making their voices hers The mist from the icy canyon below spins into gypsy dancers Slender childlike forms hidden and revealed by the drifting tapestries of the Girl's lyrics Flinging themselves through a turgidly erotic dance Her song resonates with the high cliffs and the cliffs echo inside her The Girl's serenade enraptures the Four Winds and They spin about her head and sing their sorrows with hers Her voice stalks the frozen hillsides like shadows snatched from the fire Chilling dawn drafts eddy around her and Emptiness probes her for the places where it can cut the deepest Her eyes show red like embers stolen from an angry fire And her tears are apparitions chasing grave silence around the mountain peaks Anguish is a forest of widows She weeps from a hunger she can neither endure nor end The starlight melts into the sun and still her song weeps The spirits of the Mountain Elders awakened by her song Feel compassion for the girl with restless tears And the immemorial solitude that imprisons her soul darkens and drifts away Her soul plays in the cold air rising from the canyon floor and she Forgets her hideous solitude in the exuberance of her delight The weary Songstress looks upon the Angels of the Solstice for the first time Love wells up in her eyes And the moment is engulfed in eternity

Copyright 2000 - M.D. Burke