Day 877: Snow Queen Meditations #2

Snow Queen - Helen Dunmore

Long long I have looked for you,
snowshoeing across the world
across the wild white world

with my heart in my pocket
and my black greased boots
to keep the cold out,

past cathedrals and pike marshes
I've tracked you,
so long have I looked for you.

In your star-blue palace
I wandered and could not find you
in your winter garden
I picked icicles,

my fingers burned on your gate
of freezing iron
I have the pain
of it yet on my palm.

through clanging branches
and black frost-fall
I dared not call

so I slide above worlds of ice
where the fishes kiss

and the drowned farmer
whips on his cart
through bubbles of glass

and his dogs prance
at the tail-end, frozen
with one leg cocked
and yellow urine
twined in thickets of ice.
I stamp my boot
and the ice booms.

I have looked so long
I am wild and white
as your creatures, I might
be one of your own.