NaPoWriMo 10

Fimbulwinter

Winter turned to wan and weary winter,
seeds stayed stubborn in the stone-hard earth,
snow flakes fell in a foul and freezing air,
ice rimed ridge and rig and runnel, snow
packed hard in folds, fields and shadowlands,
and the mires of missing summers.

That was the start of it; my kin starved last year
so I sailed south, cut free of sea-ice,
and slipped down the long loch to leads
of open water, and the sea roads to lands
I hoped were warmer. Landfall on an island
my forefathers’ folk settled and tilled,
parks for the beasts, wheelhouses for shelter,
but friendship and kinship do not sustain.
No feasting, for famine had struck at the homes by the shore,
and most had moved on, as I would tomorrow.

Coastal sailing, by headland and bay, not lodestone nor stars,
and inland the sight of white hills, lands locked in ice-grip
of the Frost Giants. Sons of Ymir, daughters of Freyr,
send greetings to Thor, we need the hammer Mjöllnir
to break the glass of this cold and to strengthen poor Sol.

Colin Will
10/04/2013