On collabs: I've decided not to "join" one after perusing diarist.net and realizing how many projects and idea-sparks there are out there that require no membership. It's not that I actually mind the committment; it's that I don't like the idea of being shackled to a collab some of whose topics may not spark me. That said, here's an entry for Ampersand's current topic:
"The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst/ are no worse, if imagination amend them." - A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare
Jung may have been right.
The things of old lore call out
to the deepest-buried shadows boiling
well behind our thoughts.
It is not clear; do they call out
a reaction or a self's reflexion?
I have known Faerie feared and loved and both.
Spoken of in whispers as the Good Folk
and doors thereto sought in the hillsides
under moonlight.
And Voodoun as well:
another set of clothes for Christian saints?
or devils working evil on their dupes?
or Riders, neither good nor bad,
but caring nothing for humanity
save as a source of horses?
Puck and the phooka, manitou, mermaid,
And all the many guises of the Raven:
good or evil, mere blind power,
or just a desperate cry
that This Is Not All There Is?