Late January 
is eighty degrees
or hail
or warm sunlight
and a cold breeze.

Late January
is when I spin
God’s eyes
and sing
a prayer
to a woman
from a place
I’ve never been.
But I feel Her.

1500 years ago,
maybe,
a woman
with my son’s eyes
sat with her sheep
and sang a prayer
to Her, too.

I feel Her
in winter’s first dandelion,
at my coven sister’s fountain,
in the candle flame
I burn for Her,
and when I put pen to paper.

Late January
is renewing
remembering
rebirth

Late January
puts Imbolc on my mind.

[Hayley Arrington is a writer of mythological and dark poetry and prose. She believes that myth is a verdant landscape where the Goddesses and Gods of old can be felt in the present. Her writings have appeared in a variety of venues, most recently in Weird Fiction Quarterly, The Wisdom of Cerridwen: Transforming in Her Cosmic Brew, and Eternal Haunted Summer. Hayley is from the greater Los Angeles area, where she lives her sun-drenched days with her husband, son, and havanese, Crosby.]