Winter’s Shadow
Distant howls hail the huntress
Numbly stabbing still-born dusk
So begins the season scathing
Cold in heart of autumn thrust
Winter’s Shadow, solitary
To the darkling forest steals
Finding solace in the twilight
Isolation’s pain concealed
Drowning in the winds of Clamor
Immersion in her midnight run
To banish dreams of fair-haired Balder
With eyes as bright as midday sun
Fled she far from high walled Asgard
Turned her back to Noatun
Twin stars shone brightly down upon her
Turned she towards the waning moon
And as her snowshoes greet cold Thrymheim
(The crunching sound of virgin snow)
She sees a form move in the darkness
Silently she draws an arrow
From the brush into a clearing
Treads an unsuspecting doe
And with a whisper soft as moonlight
The shaft flies true from yew tree bow
The quarry leaps with eyes defiant
Instinct drives it towards the trees
Ten paces short falls shelter’s promise
The doe comes crashing to her knees
Thiazi’s daughter nears the creature
A tear rolls down her blistered cheek
She mutely marks its final sighs
And ushers it to Hela’s keep
Distant howls hail the huntress
Long nights of winter have begun
Embrace the icy death of summer
Abandon dreams of midday sun
(Joe Mandato)