10th Day of Yuletide

The shadows were thicker about the gathering this time, whispering in the space between flickers of firelight.  The revelers eyed them curiously but they slid aside upon approach and shrugging their observers turned back to the celebration.  This time the bard sat before a strange instrument with many strings supported by intricately carved bridges over a broad wooden base that rested on the ground.  Ivory picks were attached to his fingers extended like claws of frosted ice.  His  audience hushed curiously.  At first he picked his notes out one by one as if they were drops of water in a pool deep in the ice caverns.   Then the notes came faster each separate and discrete and yet merging into a shifting wild journey that carried the listeners back to another time.  He slowed still playing softly in the background as he spoke.  “At last they had reached the Voice.  The source of the song.  Now one question arose above all the others.  What was the Voice?”

The Form of the Voice

The melancholy tune arose from the shadows

Leaving its progenitor in obscurity

Hidden from the brilliant starlight

By the deep shadow of a snowdrift

In solemn solitude.

Jarel Frost and the Winter Queen approached

Softly, respectfully, to stand at the edge of the shadow

Looking in to a mystery

As the song surrounded them

Wrapping them in the darkness of emotion,

Even confronted with this elusive mystery

Jarel Frost could not resist the lure

Of such heartbreakingly beautiful music

And he lifted his voice to the stars

Seeking answers with his voice,

While the Winter Queen took a step into darkness

Her skirt hem disappearing into shadow

Holding her hands out in a plea of peace

Asking without asking

For she could not disturb the music,

For the first time Jarel Frost

Abandoned all pretense of musical support

Diving into a duet

Trying to understand

The nature of his singing partner,

Slowly as musical styles merged

Meaning came into the air around them

Seeping in to their minds

Without quite knowing how

Shadowy and uncertain,

The sense that the Voice had come

From far, far, away

And that it no longer knew where

That is was lost here

Far from anything it could call home,

That it was lonely

For it had no one to call friend

That the beings it had found

Resonated in alien ways

It could not comprehend,

Swaying in time to the gentle beat

The Winter Queen stepped fully into shadow

And the Voice, in surprise

Stepped back into the light

The full light of the stars,

It was an amorphous shadow

For even as they watched

The Winter Queen having retreated

Back by Jarel Frost’s side

It changed,

The Voice sang unhindered but its form

Its form morphed first into

The caricature of a great black wolf

Then a gaunt bear

But it couldn’t hold the forms here or there,

From fox to owl to lemming it flickered

To a flock of geese scattered and frazzled

Stunned in the starlight

It morphed finally into a pitch black dragon

Before slipping back into the shadow,

Where it huddled against the snow drift

Concealed once more in darkness

Where no light existed to press upon it

The insistence of a physical form

Leaving it once more solely to sound,

Jarel Frost and the Winter Queen stared in astonishment

As they realized the truth of this poor being’s fate

It was trapped in this shadow for elsewise

It would be forced into a foreign existence

So foreign that chaos would destroy it.

9th Day of Yuletide

The stars were bright and the night was cold but thanks to the encouragement of the phoenix the fire was warm.  Not that many of those around it strictly speaking needed it but it was pleasant all the same.  The world held still and shadows seemed to gather in the outskirts of the firelight.  Jarel Frost picked up a translucent horn made of ice with opaque swirls that formed unrecognizable designs and the whole thing glowed in the firelight as if it was not quite of the world.  He blew a long note that carried across the tundra with the strength of a glacier and the beauty of a snowflake.  Startling his audience he then played a series of short notes that seemed to tinkle as if starlight had been given sound and he cast forth the melody into the night in invitation.  “Every journey must end somewhere and it was no different for our travelers than any other, though if asked they might have said that their journey ended sooner than they expected, much sooner.”

The Source of the Voice

When the stunted Northern forest

Had dwindled to a stripe of green

When the winds that whirled around them

Blew unhindered across the tundra

The clouds departed.

With the clouds clearing away to the horizon

The stars shone clearly upon them

A crescent moon leaving the stars

To shine supreme

With cold, clear, light,

Granting the travelers their very first

Look at each other

By the dim crystalline starlight

They turned their gazes unerringly

Towards each other,

Jarel Frost looked upon the very vision

Of a Winter Queen

She was tall and pale

With sharp yet dainty features

In a dress of sweeping fur-trimmed white,

Yet he could not see her as cold and distant

After all the hours they had talked

He looked closer at her face in the starlight

Seeing faint traces of weariness

In the shadows around her eyes,

Seeing wonder soften her features

As she gazed from him to the stars

Loneliness in the stiffness of her spine

And somehow traces of a delicate beauty

More fitting a flower than a snowflake,

The Winter Queen looked upon a bard

His features were sharp and pale as ice

Yet softened with humanity

His long sweep of ice-white hair

Was graced with a streak of mortal black,

Caught between mortality and immortality

An uneasy place to be as well she knew

She saw the loneliness that haunted his eyes

The wariness behind his front of cheer

And the soft smile as he looked back at her,

Starlight borne revelations were not to cease

From the shadow cast by a snowdrift

Cut crisply by the cool light

Came the haunting melody

Of the Voice.

8th Day of Yuletide

The clouds had retreated to the horizon leaving the stars to twinkle down.  A chill fell across the land as the vast ocean of space stole away the Earth’s heat but the gathering around the fire cared not.  Footprints radiated in towards the gathering and milled in circles around it, some tracking from a long way off and some appearing from thin air.  A great snowy owl, late to the party, flew over and noticed two such sets of footprints that began in an expanse of clear snow and continued on side by side.  They were soft prints such as those made by the reindeer herders’ boots but lighter as if the wearers weighed less than they aught or hadn’t quite settled down to earth.  He followed them all the way over the fire were the bard was laughing with a woman dressed all in white and on their feet were matching boots of white reindeer hide.  The bard picked up a bodhran with an intricate snowflake designed that twisted as the viewer watched revealing foxes and owls and reindeer cavorting.  He beat out a steady traveling beat and then shifted into a more frenetic rhythm with the odd skipped beat before returning to a steady pace.  “The two climbed up out of the tunnel into the open air once more but still in darkness.  The storm had left behind its thick, looming, clouds.”

Traveling Together

Side by side in the Northern dark

Of a winter long and cold

The travelers tread on the crusts of snow

Out from the forests sheltering embrace

Out to the tundra’s vast plain.

As they journeyed by instinct and memory

Sightless, they filled the air with sound

Speaking of the lives that had brought them here

Cautioning wearing away to leave truth

To sidle out into the open air.

It was in this peculiar lightless world

Made of the snow beneath their feet

The taste of ice in the air

The sound of each other

That they heard the Voice again,

It pierced the darkness, weaving sorrow

As it haunted the long cold night

Winding about them with bittersweet beauty

With nothing to allay it

It passed them by unknowing,

Even as the Winter Queen froze in silence

Her breath shallow and soundless

Jarel Frost inhaled the icy air

Taking his element into his lungs as he listened

And sang,

At first it was a simple harmony

Bracing the Voice with notes

Drawn from his own loneliness and heartache

And as his voice filled her ears

The Winter Queen wept,

But then he changed his tune

Amid the heartache and sorrow he sang

We are coming

You are not alone

But if he was heard there was no sign,

The Voice continued to pass them by

And as it faded once more into darkness

The travelers spun

Needles in their own magnetic field

Turning towards the pole of heartache.

7th Day of Yuletide

The snow clouds were heavy and low closing the tundra in on itself as cozily as a vast expanse of gently rolling land can be.  Surrounded by drifts of snow the gathering was snug and cheery about their fire as fat warm snowflakes fell from the sky.  The children of a snow maiden and a fox shifter pounced on the falling flakes and rolled down the snow banks upon landing, they hadn’t quite figured out how to plan for after they jumped.  Their parents smiled at them indulgently.  The woman in white caught one kit before she could roll too close to the fire and put her back on her feet smiling.  The kit bowed in cheery gratitude, nearly tumbling over again, and went off to join her brother in pouncing on their father’s tail.  The bard watched the white woman’s smile as it nearly concealed her wistfulness and hid a slightly haunted look of his own by tuning his lute.  Settling in to his snowy seat by the fire he picked out a merry traveling tune on his lute, a repetitious piece that could wind over hill and over ice floe, if he let it.  “As all storms will this one came to pass and the travelers were faced with a decision.  A decision on which rested more than they could know.”

The Decision of a Beginning

The storm reveled in the wild expanse

Of the North with its stunted trees and sprawling tundra

But eventually, with a great clap of thunder

The storm gave a great yawn

And dwindled away.

Slowly the quiet percolated down

Through ice and snow and stone

To the two travelers in the cavern

Conversing in the dark

As time wound on,

They came to realize the existence

Of a new absence

The absence of the storm

And silence fell between them

The time had come to decide,

For each knew the other

Was on the same quest as their self

In search of the voice

That haunted them still

With melancholy that sang in the heart,

Jarel Frost broke the ice with cautious good cheer

“It was a pleasure meeting you.

Now that the storm has passed I will be continuing on.”

“Likewise.”  The Winter Queen replied

“And I too shall resume my query.”

She hesitated, but Jarel did not

He quite liked the sound of her

And, she kept the loneliness at bay

“It would seem dear Winter Queen,

That we are going the same way.”

She started, it had been a long time

Since any had spoken so affectionately

She hesitated to involve herself

But wasn’t that exactly what she sought

A kindred spirit?  And here one was.

“So, it would.  But the way North is both broad

And quite narrow.”

“Shall we take the narrow way?”  He proposed

“I should like that.”

She replied cautiously,

“Then lead on, I believe your entrance

Will make a better exit than mine.”

Jarel Frost gestured grandly

Unseen in the dark

The Winter Queen retraced her steps

Opening the tunnel before them,

Following the snow soft sound

Of her footsteps transitioning from stone to snow

Jarel Frost followed her

Up through a tunnel of delightful cold

Trailing his fingers along the wall of crystalline ice.

6th Day of Yuletide

The merrier festivities had wound down on another festive gathering in the long winter night and the storytellers were taking over.  The owls re-fluffed their feathers, there had been some excitement earlier with a snow-devil, and the foxes yawned and tucked their tails about themselves.  The storyteller smiled and picked up his pipes, a beautiful work of magic wrought of ice, unmelting.  He played a few hesitant notes, as if footsteps drawing nearer in the dark, and then picked up a cautious and hauntingly beautiful tune full of wist and caution and both hope and fear of the unknown.  Even immortals fear.  “I take you now back to the dark cavern where two souls were at last aware of the other, but only in the most obscure of senses.”

Meeting in a Cavern

The wind howled like a heartbroken demon outside

Flinging a massive winter storm about

Surrounding the tranquil cave at a distance

Whilst inside it was still and dark

The only sound quiet breathing,

And two sets of footsteps

Soft as snowflakes on the rocky cavern floor

Drawing closer, hesitantly, circling

Two strangers warily coming together

In the shattered aftermath of parallel paths,

It was the bard who broke the stalemate

“I am Jarel Frost and I seek the voice

That haunts the darkness with woe.”

It had occurred to him that a stranger in this place

Might well be that lonely soul,

The other paused in her circling and drew herself together

“I am called the Winter Queen,” she replied with cold certainty

Hesitating for a moment she resumed her slantwise approach

“I too seek a voice that haunts the winter night

“A lonely haunted voice.”

And while Jarel Frost was now assured

That hers was not the voice he heard

He thought he heard an undertone

That matched the wild loneliness

Of that haunted soul,

The Winter Queen was not so sure

For while his was not the lead voice

She thought it might, just perhaps

Be the source of the harmony

That had lifted the voice high,

Neither spoke of their suspicions

But as the storm raged about

They stayed together snug and safe

Choosing company over

The terrifying glory of the storm,

As they spoke of weather and other superficial drivel

That held far more meaning than either would admit

At least just yet

They found themselves moving closer in the darkness

Taking comfort in each other’s voice and breathe,

But as of yet the thought was merely fleeting

A faint sense of wistfulness not yet coherent

An echo of regret they barely realized

That as they drew closer without touching

There was no heat to share.

5th Day of Yuletide

A congenial air spread out from the fire to warm the gathering.  The stars were bright overhead, and on the horizon mighty storm clouds loomed.  The birds preened happily.  No one, not even the kitsune with five bushy tails bothered to tuck their nose in for warmth.  Folks cuddled in to their loved ones with contented sighs.  The white woman smiled contentedly where she sat curled up by the fire.  The bard picked up a double-headed drum and beat softly as he picked up his tale.  “For all that each had seen many a decade pass, that week it seemed they would be forever alone, as the journey stretched on, placing one foot after another North.  Before the moon could wax to gibbous the semblance of eternity shattered.”

Storms Destroy Parallels

The faint moonlight that had trickled

Down through the thick needled forest

Casting the faintest of sparkles from the snow

Was gobbled up by clouds thick and dark

A battalion of storm clouds.

Jarel Frost watched the forest vanish before his eyes

Leaving the blackest of darkness

That within the mantle of a winter storm

The wind picked up with a howl

Pelting him with cruel shards of hail,

The Winter Queen saw darkness descend,

And smiled

Even she would be at the mercy

Of a storm so fierce she could feel portent looming

It would be epic, if any were left to remember,

The storm raged, ripping into the trees

Reshaping the snowscapes with ice and wind

Coating the trees and snow in ice

Then shattering them

Into the heaving, morphing, drifts,

The storm tore from west to east

From north to south

A churning, twisting, mass of weather

That moved the world to its command

Utterly obliterating any chance of parallel paths,

Jarel Frost gave thanks to his immortal father

That his own body could survive

The fearsome weather

The wind could lift him but never break

And the cold was his birthright,

The Winter Queen embraced the storm

Throwing herself into its battle

Her own immortal body

Battered and flung about unbreaking

No death could find her in a winter storm,

But though both of the travelers

Gloried in the might of the storm

And neither could die from such

Even immortals and semi-immortals wearied

And the storm was strong and long,

So it was that Jarel Frost bestirred himself

To take up the reigns of the wind

That it would release him back to the ground

Where he followed its chill gusts

Into ice-coated stone with the sound of a cave,

So it was that the Winter Queen at last commanded

The snow to open a tunnel before her

That she might descend below

To a semblance of peace

In a conjoining cavern,

It was as each caught their breath

Stretching their ears beyond their own heartbeats

Filtering past the roaring storm outside

That they sensed in the darkness

That they were not alone.

Warmth

Warmth, that lovely feeling

That suffuses the summer

Borne by brilliant sunshine

Transforming air and stone,

In springtime it is welcome

Its return cherished

As it guarantees the return

Of life,

In autumn it is held close

Against the coming chill

Slipping through our fingers

Leaving our toes to cool,

Such is the warmth of sunshine

Waxing and waning with seasons

Taken for granted in its presence

Longed for in its absence,

When the days turn cold

There are other sources

Burning bright and proud

Fire is praised by many,

The hearthfire that warms the house

The bonfire that lights up the night

The lantern that guides us home

The candle that warms our heart,

There are many forms of warmth

Those for body, those for soul, those for heart

Those whose gifts cross boundaries

From physical to intangible,

The fire that heats the air and cheers the heart

The lantern that warms the hands and brings hope

The stove that cooks dinner and symbolizes home

The candle that holds back the dark and cold,

There is an intangible warmth

That shines brighter than all the rest

That needs no material base

Merely responsive hearts,

The gentle heat of family

That is stable as the stove

Warming the hearth and home

Providing safe harbor,

There is the bright flash of friendship

A candelabra that flares with synergy

When it is not shining

A steady stream of welcoming photons,

There are complex constructs

Of all of the above

That together warm body, heart, and soul

For the greatest warmth of all, is love.

4th Day of Yuletide

The prevalent sounds about the gathering were the shush of snow falling and the crackle of the fire rising.  A kitsune jumped on a particularly fat snow flake and then looked up shaking snow off his white face disgruntledly.  The black ravens began to turn white while the white ravens ruffled their feathers smugly.  The bard picked up a goat horn and blew a long note out across the tundra.  Drawing breathe he cast a sequence of faster and faster notes into the air and the snow seemed to pick up its pace as it fell, until he stopped, and all the world went still.  “For all that our travelers were closer than many of the others that had resonated with the Voice’s song they still had a long, long, way to go.”

Traveling Alone

Snow lay in monumental drifts throughout the forest

Shaping the world with its own shifting topography

Misleading crusts that dumped the unwary

Into piles of powder as deep as themselves

Or sticky, pokey, tree wells,

The wary, the clever, and the cursed or blessed

Were gifted to walk the surface

Never to fall in

They strode across the crest of the drifts

And down into the vales of white,

Jarel Frost whistled as he walked

And all the little songbirds

That dared the northern winter

Came flitting through the trees

Adding their high voices to his song,

The Winter Queen glided

Her skirts erasing her faint footmarks

The wind dusting snow across her trail

As she traversed a different stretch of forest

In silence,

For Jarel the birds were a fleeting joy

A brief brightness in his solitude

He conjured up his pipes

And played them a merry tune

Quickening their foraging,

For the Winter Queen it was a peaceful time

Twitter birds avoided her, yes, such was the season

But there were no humans to plague her with emotions

A graceful lynx passed by at a distance

As silent as she,

When the birds had left for better foraging

When the lynx was no more than a memory in the snow

The hollows of solitude were empty once more

And the memory of music drove them mercilessly

Deeper into the winter night,

As the moon waxed from new dark to a bright first quarter

The travelers continued along parallel paths

That seemed to promise to stretch into infinity

In the endless dark of a soul chilling winter

Without ever meeting.

3rd Day of Yuletide 2019

Cold lay heavily across the land and the snow fell thick in the darkness of winter.  Closing in on solstice the moon had shone bright in the absence of the sun for more than a full cycle now.  Even some of the cold hardy folk who gathered to celebrate on the open tundra drew their cloaks in tight and snuggled in close to each other.  The snow owls and ravens joined the phoenix on the Ice Dragon’s back to his amusement as they edged in closer to her fiery warmth.  The bard smiled at the woman in white who left her head bare to the falling snow.  Smiling back she tucked her hair behind her exposed ears and watched as he picked up his fiddle.  The audience settled expectantly and he startled them by breaking into a jig.  A snow maiden leaped up and grabbed one of the North Wind’s gentler cousins by the hand and they started an impromptu dance circle.  The bard smiled and nodded and played another few energetic folk tunes and then he segued into a delicate piece with the sound of spring to it and the dancers fell back down with a huff of laughter into the audience.  From there he wandered into a melancholic piece and the white woman’s smile turned bitter and ironic until he set his fiddle down.  “The next character I bring to you was born to mortals, a situation that brought blessings and curses in equal measure because she became both revered and feared as a Winter Queen.”

The Winter Queen

The vibrations of that haunted voice

And of the strong harmony that had joined it

Fled, leaving the night air still once more

Leaving the Winter Queen to crumple in its absence

To the ground of her wintery realm.

Emotions wracked her with shocking fury

That she had thought long frozen in the past

The heart she had sealed up with ice

With the elemental purity of winter

Began to crack.

Memories leaked back in, no longer held at bay

Of a time long, long ago, and a place not far enough away

When she was but a carefree mortal youth

Of the reindeer herder folk

Free to laugh, to love, to play,

If the snow fell a little thicker

When her child-self frolicked

It was brushed off and ignored

As a change in time

Even as her bright eyes adored it,

Her bright eyes of uncommon blue

The shade of a clear winter sky

As unusual as the pale blond

Of her long and silky hair

Unlike her earthy parents,

But her parents loved her and she loved them

And all was bright and light and fair

Until she came of age

When the turbulence of emotion struck

Thunder cracked, lightning split the skies,

And hail struck the reindeer herder’s camp

A freezing cold killed the flowers in their bloom

And a terrified mortal youth fled

Out across the tundra to keep her people safe

Summer died in her wake.

All that summer she struggled and strove

To pull her power under her control

To quell her wayward emotions

So that she could return home

Without bringing death,

At last as the frost nipped the air

She obtained a semblance of balance

Demonstrating to satisfaction

The ability to hold back her powers

And to direct them as she desired, mostly,

But when she returned to her people

She found them changed

No longer did they view her as some carefree youth

But with wariness and enough uncommon courtesy

To make her cry,

In desperation she orchestrated a demonstration

An arrangement of ice sculptures

That left the Autumn flowers in bloom

A fall of snow gentle and soft

That melted swiftly and surely,

But all that did was put respect in their eyes

It did not, could not, thaw their wariness

The girls no longer pulled her aside to giggle

The boys cut off their courtships

Though she was fair and kind as ever,

Only her parents still approached her with love

Only they looked past her power and wintery coloring

To see the girl within

But they could not stop the village’s change

No more than a howling blizzard,

As the years turned the girl grew in power and wisdom

She held the worst of the storms at bay

She sculpted the snowbanks into ideal insulation

She found lost reindeer and children in the snow

Displaying great power and kindness,

But she was cold, so cold

For even the children kept their distance

Held back by well-meaning hands

She wept in the darkness

And took to wandering far afield,

When her parents in their age died

She took her grief far into the North

To fling it at the vast ice sheets

There storms raged and ice mountains cracked

Their fury visible at such a distance as to become legend,

And it was many long years before she returned

To take up guardianship over her village again

They rejoiced at her return but time had worked its magic

They had built her into a myth in her absence

And now they called her their Winter Queen.

As the decades turned she remained smooth skinned and spry

The brilliance never faded from her eyes

The only change a weary wisdom

And the transformation of her pale hair

From blond to snow white,

One spring, when all her generation had gone

To the bright fields of the great beyond

She stepped off the snow onto a patch of green

Inhaling the sweet fragrance of flowers

And vanished.

Through the long summer the people worried

Though some were secretly relieved

They tended their herds

They went about their lives

But somewhere in their minds they waited,

Half expectant though they wouldn’t have said so

After all her disappearances before

After all the generations of her presence

They almost thought she would return with the snow

And she did,

She did and she wept for she knew

That there was no easy rest for her

Her people’s belief had raised her to godhood

Her mortal frailty was stripped from her

Leaving her to the embrace of winter,

She could wander the fields of snow

Could dance naked under the midday moon

On the vast sheets of cracking sea ice

And never die, consigned to eternity

Alive but always alone.

The Voice’s haunted loneliness

Filled the hollow in her heart with longing

Even as the mysterious harmony

Raised a weary curiosity

Uncrumpling she straightened, and stepped North.

2nd Day of Yuletide 2019

Frost patterned the sod around the fire and the flames flickered in a mischievous breeze.  The owls ruffled their feathers indignantly and the Northwind and his lady chuckled.  The ice dragon puffed out a cloud of ice particles.  This time there was a sense of merriment around the fire, remnant of an earlier entertainment or subconscious of some other undercurrent they couldn’t have told, though some of them had an inkling.  Still, they settled into admirable quiet when the bard took up his lyre.  “The Voice that sang so hauntingly had set off a quest unwitting, and so it falls to me now to introduce the main characters.  One you have met already, the Voice.  Next I shall bring to you, Jarel Frost.”  Many of the audience suppressed a smile as the bard set finger to lyre, and this time he played as he spoke.

Jarel Frost

As the voice twinkled into silence

Disappearing note by note

Leaving the memory of aching beauty

Such as stars giving way to day will

Jarel Frost released his own tune leaving the air unspun.

He was born ages past to an unusual pair

The North Wind incarnate, and

A mortal bard of tundra and wood

Her lovely dark skin and midnight hair surpassed

By the beauty in her voice,

No fickle fancy or fleeting whim

Their love was true and lasting

A warmth to wrap around their son

Whose fair features and long sweep of pale hair

Bore the mark of his immortal father,

Likewise, his ice blue eyes

The wind and frost that danced to his command

And the semi-eternal flame of his life

Whilst from his mother came

Nimble fingers and breathtaking voice,

The gift of music

A mortal creation of art worthy of gods

Marked by a streak of black in his hair

By a vibrant desire for life

Courtesy of the knowledge of endings,

This dual heritage left him neither here nor there

Too mortal quick for the gods of old

Too striking and powerful for his mother’s kin

Though beloved by both for his art

He was doomed to wander alone.

Alone he felt the silence wrap around him

Waiting, expectant, to be filled

But at last, not by him

A vibrant curiosity was awakened

He uncurled, taking his first step north.

1st Day of Yuletide 2019

The very air held its breath, the winter wind held in check, and snow settled softly with barely a whisper on the tundra.  A fire blazed proud in a circle of sod at the center of a winter gathering in the darkest month.  About it hardy creatures of the North gathered to celebrate the coming solstice.  Arctic foxes and snowy kitsunes, snowy owls and icebirds with elegant plumes of frosty feathers.  Great bears blended in with the snowdrifts blinking sleepily.  Snow cats padded softly around settling as they saw fit.  Ravens perched as they would, black and white alike.  The North Wind swirled softly near the edge of the light with the spirit of a bard dark and lovely in his embrace a smile on her lips.  Ice demons quelled their violent habits to join the peace accord for the festivities.  A woman dressed all in white sat near the fire her feet tucked neatly under her skirts.  Around the perimeter a great snow dragon curled in a half circle with a phoenix perched between his wings.  The aurora borealis shimmered overhead against a backdrop of twinkling stars.  Sitting cross legged before the fire a tall man with long white that brushed the snow raised a flute to his lips.  A haunting tune rang across the tundra.  Tucking away his flute he spoke.  “Not so long ago, on this very tundra, a lost soul cried out to the world.”

The Voice

Piercing the winter’s night with its brilliance

A voice tuned the darkness to its minor chord

Haunting the space between ground and sky

Reverberating through shadow and fleeing light

Holding the air captive with its plea.

Its aching melody wound around the cold

Wafting with it forth from the North

Over tundra hushed with snow

Through forests twisted by time

It moved south across the world.

Its melancholy touched others in their loneliness

Where they had withdrawn into shadowed solitude

In forests thick and tundra vast and deserts barren

They resonated as many, as one

They turned North, and listened.

Jinni in their sand swept deserts

Heard the whispers in the cold night wind

Pulling shawls about themselves

They turned away

Not for them the frigid North.

A poet in his cavern dark

Felt the dark notes touch his soul and shivered

Knowing temptation could be his death

He delved deeper towards another mystery

Not for him the treacherous land above.

A heartbroken lover left alone

Was lifted by the beauty in the song

Too late to stop her fateful plan to follow

As she threw herself at death

Not for her the quests of the living.

An isolated queen of winter

Shook with the vibrations of that lonely voice

Felt its echoes as aftershocks in her own soul

Her past had made her a compass needle

Her will would make her fly.

A demigod of frost and music

Hummed a quiet harmony

Syncing into rhythm and understanding

Purer than he had ever known

He lifted his voice in song.

Happy Birthday Mother

Elder, Wise One

Elder, wise one

Share with me

The knowledge of time

Of toil and tears,

Elder, wise one

Share with me

The joy of life

Your laugh lines fine

Etchings of past mirth,

Elder, wise one

Share with me

How to fly

How to breathe

When the world

Is fog and shadow,

Elder, wise one

Share with me

The wonders of life

Microscopic to macroscopic

From the beauty of a diatom

To the glory of a sunset

From the mysteries of thought

To the brilliance of lightning

The eternal wonders of the universe.

Sally Forth

From a lush temperate fjord

I shall sally forth into the unknown

Over continent and tumultuous sea

To a land renowned for snow

For happiness and health

To study our shattering Arctic

To drink of the world’s knowledge.

Leafy Liverwort

Scales of green

Overlapping in tight harmony

Plated stems branching down

Curling out into the open air

Individuals clustered

In a cozy colony

Set amid the mosses

You grow sleekly on the alder

Leafy liverwort

Porella navicularis.

Phantom Fungi

Phantoms lurk in my mind

Haunting the neural networks

On which I must travel

They dog my thoughts

They pop-up like mushrooms

Sometimes beautiful and poisonous, or

Tasty and cute, or

Stinky and horrible

Strong enough to break asphalt

Frail enough to die

Beneath the weight of a bigger thought

Wisps that fade away on sight

Or glow at attention

Phantom fungi.

When the Autumn Storms Come Calling

When the Autumn storms come calling

Whilst the Autumn leaves are falling

There’s a tension in the air

There’s a fire in my veins,

For the wind is in the treetops

Blowing fierce and strong

For the clouds are building, billowing

Vast behemoths of water proud,

The sky becomes a battleground

The seas begin to churn

The trees prepare for Winter

The hearth-fires begin to burn,

When the Autumn storms come calling

With elemental might

Summoning both sleep and death

Howling in the night.

Golden Gibbous Moon

The moonlight shines on the water

The stars smile down from above

The wind gently ruffles wavelets

Peace lies across the sea,

The Moon casts down

A path of golden light

Shimmering across the water

Reaching for me,

Enchanted I paddle up the ribbon of light

An elvish elixir filling my heart

On the path to the golden gibbous Moon.

An Old Man and His Dog

When the morning sun wrapped its vaporous shawl close

When the days were short and cold

Out in a sturdy skiff of wood in rain and sleet

And old fisherman rowed.

From dawn to dusk he set to sea

Casting his lines again and again

Reaping the harvest of the sea’s bounties

When the land’s were meager and drear,

Then he came home at night

To a cold, dark, hut

Lit precious wood in his stove

And put nice fresh fish in an old stew pot,

Later to the tune of the whistling storm

He settled close to the cooling stove

And let the tides of sleep carry him away

To a land of patchwork dreams.

One night as he listened to the storm

The thunder shaking his walls

As lightning split the air

He heard, in an expectant silence, a scratching at the door,

Begrudgingly he left his bed

For the night was fierce and cold

And cracked open his door to see

What the stoop might hold,

The lightning flashed and in its light

His eyes were met by an old hound dog

Soaked to the bone and shivering

It soulfully implored,

With a sigh the old man let it in

For it was no night to be out alone

And in it slunk gratefully

As the old but sturdy plank door shut out the storm,

He dried it with his holeyest blanket

He gave it heads and tails of fish

He rubbed its ears as it wagged its tail

And then went back to bed,

And as he drifted back to sleep

That old hound dog curled up on his feet

And the old man realized that up until now

His toes had been stone cold, sea cold, but not anymore.

Catch the Wind

The sails are bright on a sunny day

As they catch the wind over waters of blue

Sparkling waves kick up foam about the bows

Of the wooden hulls that hold the crew,

The wind is a mischief maker

Shifting from east to west

The wily sailor folk are tacking

At the gray bearded captains' behest,

Hither and yon across the wild waters

Aimless it would seem

But at the end of the day they are snug away

In a harbor safe to dream.

Fairies in the Flowers

Fairies dancing in the flowers

Slipper-footing on the irises

Golden pollen in their hair

Sipping nectar merrily

Kicking sparkles into sunshine

Giggles drifting in the air.

A Gift of Cold

Cold of glaciers chill my bones

Sweeping down from mountains

Icy streams and cool winds

Stealing heat from stifling days

Pulling me back into myself

An individual among individuals

Bound to life and intertwined

With the world in present mind.

Storms Rage

Storms rage churning oceans

Tossing foam to lightning struck heavens

Rending the air with fearsome thunder

Fissuring the sky with brilliant bolts

Jagged and blinding.

Kayaking

Paddle to the toes

Dug into the water

Pulling myself to freedom

Faster and faster

Straightening my path

Water splashing

About my bow

Higher and higher

Laughter rising towards the sky

Splash of saltwater

Tethering soul to body

Racing through the waves

Gloriously alive.

Time

Tick, tock, time is passing

Passing, fleeting, never staying

Always here and never absent

Cannot capture, can’t escape

Though we curse it

Though we bless it

Though we plead and beg and pray

Time flows on all unhindered

The vital change granting life.

A Time so Short and Bright

From the narrowest sliver of space

Caught between roof and tree

The moon is shining brightly

Through my window to me,

So bright, so fair, so proud it shines

For the briefest glimpse of time

Just as the other afternoon

The sun came shining through,

Through my window a slender beam

And through a tiny crystal

Suspended in space to gleam

Casting rainbows on my wall,

By grace of star and satellite

And slivers of space by day and night

My world was blessed with light

For a time so short and bright.

Spring's Approach

Spring lies nigh

Rolling over in her sleep

Towards the land of now

Her trailing fingers

Stealing the bite

From Dawn’s Winter chill.

Gold and Alder

Golden sunshine pours

Beaming from the east

Splashing over alder bark

Whitened by lichens

Trimmed with green moss,

Honey on a winter morning

Sweetening the chill nipped air

Contrasting with the white mist

Arising from the dawn.

Snow

When a hush lies across the land

Stillness rare and precious

When the birds flit bright in the forest

Sparks of the flame of life

When the sea lies calm under a layer of crystals

An opaque expanse of serenity

Winter’s gift graces the world

Snow…

Flakes of magic drift from the sky

Frozen star kisses

Cold and sharp and pure

Gentle and intricate and beautiful

Transient against the heat of life

Giving their lives en masse

In the preservation of heat and light

Precious resources in the season

Of dark, of cold…

They coat the land in glittering, sparkling, white

Bringing joy and wonder and comfort

As they burn bright and fast

A sweet counter to the bitter cold

In our most desperate season

We are blessed by the magic of snow.

Feathers

Feathers are the mark of flight

Though not required

Though not unique to

Still they are the symbol and mystery

Of travel in the skies.

Feathers speak to dreams and fancy

Calling to the spirits of wanderers

A siren song of freedom

Such as we may never know,

To soar the great blue

To dance with muscle and feather

In a three-dimensional world

Where air fills our lungs.

In Darkness

Darkness to infinity

Or is it?  Does it matter?

Darkness beyond the range of my senses

Giving me reign to be unknown, unseen,

Starlight, silver, cold, blessed

Light that mingles with dark

Both cold and fair.

A high, clear, voice as piercing as starlight

Rises in song, filling the darkness with haunting beauty,

Cold soothes the soul and beauty unfurls in the void.