Winter King

When frost rimes my window I cannot forget
you were there at my beginning
and will greet me again at the end.

Winter King

you take me back to what is raw,
glacial plains of horror,
the obnoxious beauty of it all

to beyond the Ice Age
when millennia ago we met
when the universe drew breath,

when the binding song coalesced.
You came as cold wind
and your inspiration was death.

You are the muse that moves the forest,
the ice that strips the hills,
the hunt that runs without flesh or bone

by the force of its boreal will.
Your voice is the chill that keeps me alive,
the poem that sparkles when all else dies.

When frost rimes my window I cannot forget
you were there at my beginning
and will greet me again at the end.

*This poem was first published in Enchanting the Shadowlands. The digital version is available from Gods & Radicals Press HERE.

**With thanks to Aaron Cook for the use of his image ‘snowflake macro’.

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LORNA SMITHERS

Lorna Smithers is a poet, author, editor, and conservation volunteer. As an awenydd and Brythonic polytheist she is devoted to Gwyn ap Nudd. She has published three books: Enchanting the Shadowlands, The Broken Cauldron, and Gatherer of Souls. She is a co-founder of Awen ac Awenydd and writes for Gods & Radicals. She blogs at From Peneverdant.