The Scarlet Ribbon

When in dreams we do walk

Through thicket and through meadow
Through sea foam beaches and tidy hedgerows

While bagpipes whistle through the hills

Do I cry out your name once more?



Am I in your dream too, dancing on the moor?

Do you see my bonnie smile as I run up the road?

Do you miss your bright colleen?

Your woman-child with windblown tresses?

Do you walk through the crossroads where we first met?



Do the heather and the thistles still wind all around the sign there?

Where old women mutter curses against pixies

And old men drive donkeys laden with firewood and thatch

Where nervous tinkers mumble words of protection

And sacrifice the unfortunate chicken over the rocks piled there?



Do you remember the scarlet ribbon from my hair?

The one you tied there after making me swear to never leave you?

We watched it wave merrily on the crossroads sign

Giggling and kissing and twining heather in my hair

Before the long walk up the northbound road



Where you went north and I went east back toward the dawn

Did you find your fortune while you were gone?

When I spin I imagine that I am one ply and you the other

When I watch the spindle twirl and twirl and know

We will be together but only when in dreams we do walk