The Returning
A Welcoming of Eostre, Southern Hemisphere Spring

​The earth had slumbered long,
her bones curled beneath frost and fallen stars,
but now.. now she stirs.
Not with thunder,
not with fire,
but with a breath…
soft as seedling roots and newborn sighs.

From the east, she comes 
Eostre, goddess of new mornings,
her footsteps trailing violets,
her laughter caught in the songs of silver fantails.
Hair crowned with daffodils and flax,
she walks barefoot across the still-cool grass,
and where she touches, the world remembers how to grow.

She carries no weapon, no crown,
only the sunlight cupped in her hands,
and the promise that sorrow,
even the deepest,
will one day turn its face to the light.

The hares leap to greet her,
feasting on clover and sky.
The wind hums a lullaby in reverse,
waking the wattle,
nudging the lambs.
Even the stones shift slightly in the soil,
leaning toward her warmth.

We open windows.
We shed skins.
We lay down old grief like wilted leaves
and step forward,
carrying our dreams like baskets
full of cracked eggs and foolish hope.

This is not the time of harvest,
nor of reckoning.
This is the moment between
a breath held in blossom,
a promise yet to bloom.

Welcome, Eostre.
May your light scatter the last of winter’s ghosts.
May we bloom as wildly as weeds,
as joyfully as children in mud-streaked boots.
And may we remember 
life returns,
again and again,
just as you do.