Tonight the old trees lean closer.
You can hear them
in the dark line of forest,
oak & pine creaking softly
like elders shifting in their seats
before the ceremony begins.
They have watched us for centuries,
watched lovers carve promises into bark,
watched children crowned in daisies
run laughing through spring fields,
watched empires rise loud & leave quietly
while roots kept drinking from the same patient earth.
Tonight they stand around us again,
green-robed & ancient,
their branches lifted
as though blessing this small human fire
built in honor of a far greater one.
Above them, the crows arrive first.
Black-winged priests of memory,
keepers of secrets hidden in thorn hedges,
they gather in the high branches
and call to one another
in voices rough as old spells.
They know this night.
They knew it
when our ancestors lit hilltop flames
to bless cattle and crops,
to leap through smoke for luck,
to call fertility back to the sleeping soil.
They knew it
when the May Queen danced barefoot in dew,
when the Green Man rose laughing
from leaf and vine and wild abandon.
They know it still.
Look how the flames reach upward now,
gold tongues licking at the dark,
sparks lifting like prayers
too wild to remain earthbound.
Bring to this fire
what winter left heavy in your bones.
Bring your grief.
Bring your fear.
Bring the names of those you miss.
Bring the dreams you nearly buried
beneath practical things.
Feed them to the flames.
And when the fire answers
with warmth against your skin,
with light against your face,
remember this: you were never made
to live half-alive.
You are meant to bloom loudly,
to love with reckless courage,
to create, to heal, to begin again.
The trees know this.
The crows cry it from the branches.
Even the stars lean low enough to listen.
Tonight we honor the turning wheel.
Tonight we choose life.
Tonight we bless the earth that holds us.
And when dawn comes,
may we leave this circle carrying fire within us,
bright enough to warm the lost,
bright enough to light our own path home.