Blood in Ice, Ice in Blood. {poetry}
{source}
He grips and looks,
surrendered sword, hilt driven
close as honor to bone
he stands above the world
where cold can kill
I am where the cold is strongest.
He burns like the ice on their dead eyes,
against the cold that chills the soul
alive and cloaked
We hold the Northern lights
as they hold the Southern seas,
the night begins, our night,
as day is lost to hope
and the shadow of a dream
The cycle never ends
but still we burn, burn
bright and sharp
into the cold reaches
our hands are hot
against the bitter wind,
flat on the snowy expanses of home,
cheeks ruddy with the effort
of making it back
his eyes are brighter
than they’ve ever been,
and darker than I’ve ever seen
hair wild in the winter chill
as we look down from the highest hill
we have survived.
The night is melting off our skin,
dawn allowing us to see one another,
finally, vulnerable,
the sword he plunged into the earth
straight and gleaming to the stars
aurora has trickled down from the sky
to land softly in his laughing eyes
we have survived.
We have survived.
Sweet summer sun opens her eye
gazing as we lie in snow
she kisses my lonely head,
weeps her rays as he turns far from me
yet still, he comes back.
When the deep warmth
heats his blood
and his duties are done
he will return to my side,
to the furs, the fires,
dangerous clutch of night
the way he breathed when
death was at his ear
was defiance; I’ve never seen
anything I’ve loved more
than the way he breathed loud
as the knife touched his nape.
He is a king
with beggar’s blood
dark and cold
made elemental man
as he rode into the ice,
into the maker of his body
filled with blood heat,
I lie in the flames
and cold settled in my heartbeat
I knew then. From the inside,
from my veins and my bones,
I was defended.
Heat and cold become the shield and sword
against the enemy
I believe he saw death, a glimpse
through the snow
as it whipped past his eyes,
tangled in his hair.
He smiled at the darkness
and embraced it, killing its power
forging his strength.
So the songs go.
The taverns were alive
with baying drunken lords
and ladies whose breath
hitched on his name
but they were alive in war,
in blood and fear
while we retreated to the peace
and locked it in our breasts.
We see each other now
across the mountains
and the army that stands
at his command,
as he sees a sea of bodies,
I rise into sight, smile
to his aurora smile,
move towards his outstretched hands
take them and feel the pulse of me
in his fingers, and cold bite
of his palms on my face,
mouth forming words I have long heard
in dreamlands,
but now they are made breath and bond.
***
Josephine Hicks is a poet living her best life and listening to the call of the Universe for her purpose. She longs for a questing existence. Challenge is something she embraces (after digging her heels in a little…) and she is a fighter at heart. She loves love. Unable to settle for long, she is an adventurer. She wants to honor those who are the best at what they do. Fearlessness is her aspiration, and nature is her teacher. You could contact her via her website.
***
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