Skimt's Marrow

Along the high and wind-cut ridge,
the snow lay hard and white.
The wolf went in another’s tracks,
beneath the stars’ dim light.

The hare sprang out across the slope,
through heather stiff with frost.
She knew not what came close behind,
and knew not she was lost.

Above them fire crossed the sky,
and burned without a sound.
The wolf broke sudden from the dark,
and struck her to the ground.

His jaws shut hard around her throat;
the snow beneath ran red.
She lay among the winter heath,
and there the hare was dead.

He saw the ribs beneath her hide,
he licked her once, then stayed.
The warmth he followed through the dark
was fading where she lay.

He stared into the pathless deep,
and neither moved nor whined.
The wind drove snow across the blood,
and left no trace behind.

Then he went into the woods,
where all the pines stood black.
And something broke within his chest
when nothing answered back.

Still through the dark he searched again,
for one more heartbeat near.
To hold its living warmth to his,
then feel it disappear.

I hesitated, churned inside,
but left my den at last.
I did not stray too far away—
I turned to check the past.

"It's there, it's there," I told myself—
I really thought I knew.
Just past the hill my den still stood,
still safe, still warm, still true.

I went around the winding bend
and headed down the way.
I found a tree with markings scored—
and there she stood, that day.

Why had I left? I asked myself.
Perhaps her scent was sweet.
Perhaps my den could be replaced,
or filled to feel complete.

For long she marked me as her own—
then suddenly, a roar.
She marked again, then roared once more,
till fang and claw both tore.

I'm home again, beside my den—
the dank, the dark, the none.
Each step was slow, each paw was worn,
but safe, my journey done.

Far between the folded peaks,
there lies a narrow vale.
The moon hangs vast above the frost,
and all the trees stand pale.

The ling lies thick on lower ground,
with berries red and blue.
No snow has fallen in that cold,
yet frost has bitten through.

A low outcrop of broken stone
lifts from the waiting lea.
Upon its crown, against the moon,
there burns one crimson tree.

Red vines run dark about its roots,
not thick enough to hide.
They spill in broken, blood-dried threads
and stain the old stone side.

Then the girl steps on the frost;
her breath lifts thin and bare.
One word lies locked within her breast,
too dear for oath to swear.

From pine-dark comes her Wardr forth,
a woman, pale and slight.
Her white gown slips past age-dark steel
and gathers up the light.

Her wolf-bent legs move sure and low,
soft paws press into loam.
She walks as one who crossed no gate,
but was already home.

A silver mane falls down her back,
her still eyes hold their mark.
No softness asks within her face,
she straightens in the dark.

“Again you come to me,” she says,
“though tongue lies still as stone.”
“What would you hear?” the girl replies,
“that I must make need known?”

The old speech coils through frost and dark,
too close, too long ago.
The Wardr leans with narrowed eyes:
“Do you not do so?”

“I am not your Fylgja, child,”
her answer falling low.
Her dark eyes hold the girl in place,
where no turned lie may go.

Then silence rests between them both,
like snow that has not weighed.
“What cradles life?” the Wardr asks,
with neither need nor blade.

The girl’s hand shifts beside her hilt;
she does not draw or flee.
“I will not do the riddles now.”
“What cradles life?” calls she.

“A mother’s blood,” the girl replies,
beneath the moon’s white stare.
She speaks as if the answer asks
no price but passing air.

The answer scarcely leaves her lips
before the Wardr: “No.”
Then winter rises through the vale
and bends the dark pines low.

No spell is shaped, no hand is raised,
no seidr gives it sign.
It bends the trees and stirs the frost
and shakes the blood-red vine.

The Wardr draws her sword and seax
in one clean, ringing slide.
She lets them hang, not raised to strike;
her stance is deep and wide.

“You seek a life you will not name,
yet cast its thread aside.
No blood can cradle what the tongue
refuses yet to guide.”

No crouch, no threat, no pride was there,
no warning and no fret.
She lowered, leaned, and waited there,
as though his name a debt.

Once, I nearly crossed that line,
twice, I nearly slept.
Three times, my mind was torn apart,
I carried on — and kept.

For years I feared the papered walls,
where hidden monsters bite.
For longer, I kept all walls bare,
and painted over white.

Now ghosts look down from wooden frames,
old faces caught in light.
And oil-dark sirens haunt the walls,
too beautiful to fight.

The bed I bought, I cannot use,
I rest where I belong.
When night creeps in, the dead come too,
and keep me up till dawn.

I miss her in the quiet rooms,
but miss you even more.
The walls keep every wound I framed,
the couch is keeping score.

She walks the streets at twenty-five,
with hollow eyes that never age.
She asks again, then asks once more:
“Do you have some change?”

Fifteen, and holding all I had—
a few small coins I could not spend.
Police laughed as she went still.
Why did I give it in the end?

I wish that I could hold her close
and tell her she is not alone;
be strong enough to not let go—
could I have been her home?

Why can I not be more for her?
Why can I not undo the pain?
Why do I keep her in my heart
and lose her every day again?

But now I know her need for sleep:
why love could never reach my soul.
I saw in her my first safe home,
and needed her to make me whole.