She turns, inward.
In the expanse of time unforgiving, she slams her sword into the hot earth,
destroying the summer sun in flaming tears, withering leaf and life, as her hands become wretched and aged.
Gathering her robes of darkness, about her she ventures forth from days of fecund abandon, the dances of seduction and smooth soft flesh, the screams of birth heard in thunderstorms, and the time-driven harvesting of her children. Her eyes, course as the dying grasses upon which she walks, see her home, across the spanse of Autumn, lying in wait, the spark of her winter soul lights the fire in its chamber, the room in which she will live and die.
Every step across her earth brings the cold winds, their burgeoning gales growing, mercilessly whipping the tattered dress she once wore anew, now faded, replaced by the cape of the Old Woman. Where she once spun her body into a seductive frenzy, the dance coursing through her veins like vapoured drunkeness, she now feels the ache of time, the stiffening of her limbs, and the cold of her blood, growing. In need of shelter she walks onward, wrapped tight, her robes cover the dress of her waning youth, losing its threaded beauty, falling away from her with every step into the turn of her season, the winter winds blow her onward.
Memories of her youth are filled by shadows, and her mind recalls them with storied smiles. And by her hearth, she finally settles, picking up the staff of age and tales left untold, she begins the stirring of her cauldron, each tinkling sound of the potion within brings further the chill of night.
The Sun, once so youthful and virile, the fire of her passions, fails. He dies and is ferried to the Summerlands where she will once again meet him with the return of the Light.
For now, she begins her vigil of death. Pulling the snows from the gathering clouds, she weaves the land with her white blanket of winter. All things die or nestle into her old body, hiding from her failing memory, the voice which once called her to bring forth life and light from her body of earth.
She forgets, now. Quite purposefully her memory is consumed by each stirring of the cauldron.
Her desire only to smile and gather her limbs to the fire of her hearth, warming her fading body as she recounts tales with a smile under her wild hair,
grey and silver,
lying in chaos across her shoulders.
Her eyes may fade into frost, but they sparkle brightly with every numbered breath she takes, and in ice and frost, her rooms become a grave.
She will never leave them.
In her failing form, the winter’s long night eclipses her strength, I
n a bed with no warmth she lies, eyes transfixed by the candle she lit only days ago, now burning its last flames.
With her final breath she weaves a spell, speaking with a booming soul a voice thunders across the cold earth, running through the veined roots of the evergreens which never die, she imparts one last command to her sleeping children, swaddled in the earth, the seeds of new life.
She bids them to rise with the coming Sun, to bring forth life again when her daughter, her self, rises from the silent tomb of winter.
They will live again;
She will live again.
In the smoke of death she smiles, and looks into the chasm of darkness.
Peering forward, taking the reaper’s arm, she steels herself and walks into oblivion.
The winter swallows the Earth she leaves behind.
All things cease and slow.Rhythms of life are arrested.
Waiting for the clarion call of Spring, they watch as she walks into spiraling mists, and disappears.
No laments for their Great Mother pierce the silent snows.
Only the call of wolfen voices split the night, crying to the moon, asking for her touch once more, grieving her loss,
the song of the heart shattered by the cold of her absence.
The silent earth sleeps. The Yule fires fade. She lies down in her own grave and smiles as Death covers her.
She will sleep deeply and dreamless, the dead bones of those who she birthed into life, nestled close, surrendering to the silent snows.
All becomes cold and quiet.
Life awaits.
She gives herself over and is swept away into the rushing waters of Time.
Original Artwork by Nika Georgievna Goltz
From “The Snow Queen," original Fairy-Tale by Hans Christian Andersen,
Russian Edition, 2004
Publisher, Эксмо
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