-Rog Ow Mam, Myghternes a Nev, neb a wra ow hembronk
yn-mes ankow bys yn bywnans.
Today,
The snows of Olympus gather,
whispering,
White fans of frost in her darkling
locks,
A gentle gracing of early December
Among the black pines of Teuteborg
Forest.
Here,
Mine is a cold falling
On the slick black cobbles of
Kent,
Soon marred by the footsteps
of men,
Cloaked walkers in tree-lined
alleys
Branches bare as bony hands
Cupped over steaming mouths.
The brief sorrowing Fall has given
way
To Winter's eternal palaces,
in love
With stark contrast, dull reminders
Of seasons stirring deep in the
blood,
The sad harmony in the heart
of man.
These are the days of longing,
study of
Pale shadows riddled in the frost,
In the bone-chilling blasts of
frozen night.
These are the days of extreme
Blue.
At dawn we witness the murder
of the Sun,
The sky, groaning in the silence
of its crime
Stirring in apocalyptic striations,
Crimson, indigo and deep corals
Drain in celestial deltas, quenching
Cyclopean cloudbanks of funerary
marble.
Winter sings the twilight of St.
Thomas,
A gathering of grey mantles at
Candlemas
Huddled for warmth, forgotten
spirits
In the thawing fires of Imbolc.
Sing, sing the snows to me
Of ancient kings asleep in caves,
of
Dryad maids weeping with laden
wings, sing
Of golden galleys locked
In frozen oceans, sing to me
of Thor
Broken in battle.
Sing, sing to me the cold night,
the
Driven winds, the ruptured stone,
Sing to me your song of bright
death,
Befriended by winter's White
Prophetess.
O moon and stars, draw her near
to me
Through this desolate windfall,
ballet
In whirling winter sands, sing
to me
Of longing, of the protean flames
Dancing here in my hands, my
heart,
Sing to me the loneliness of
the Earth,
Her great dark body idling alone,
Solitary among giants, singing,
Singing always to me her quiet
song,
Fading in eternal twilight
She sings to me her loss,
The loss of Sisters, of Mothers,
of God and
My God I finally see
Through cleansing tears,
There in the dimming distant,
Hooded in black muslin,
I see you darkly, parting
Veils soft and pale.
I finally see Winter's Promise,
Aching in subtle furies,
This madness of perfect Love.
Truth is,
In its cold terror and numb beauty,
Winter never leaves us, it lives
on
In the black stony soil of Spring's
Feeble coming, asleep in dark
roots,
Tremulous fingers groping blindly
For the mystery of unknown warmth.
It is Winter
And we are only waiting.
ROM 12/3/98
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