iv

I met her on the cusp of autumn:

I met her though I didn’t yet know it,

pressed between the pages of a graveyard.

astride her half-brother

- it is all halves with her –

she was death itself and colourless,

but still had the glow of mother warmth

not yet the harsh of snow.

iii

I first recognised her in spring:

the subject of arrogant fear,

death clutched in her withered fingers

but still with the innocence of the child she is.

a child like my younger self,

inward-turning, outward-wanting.

my instinct was protect, protect,

but what could I do?

innocence is impossible to shield, I know so.

ii

so many depict her in winter:

the hardened battle general,

leading her dead troops

against the ones who condemned her.

who imprisoned her father.

who chained her wolf-brother.

who threw her snake-sibling into the sea.

they see her only in glacial rage,

no thought of who she is

beyond black-and-white life-and-death.

i

she is not often viewed in the summer sun.

perhaps she was made to autumn too quick

for the sun to make its mark upon her.

perhaps her summer has been suppressed

by too long spent in the winter death

which she calls home.

perhaps when she winters harshest

at the end of this era

and the creation of the next,

when she wars against those who took her summer

she can push through the blizzard

and come out into a new summer of her own.

and perhaps then I can too.