Years End by Dave Hunt

Years End

by Dave Hunt

In the hours between the hours when day has
died and night not yet begun
and this old Earth is made to sigh by Autumn's dim
and dwindling days,
over hills and vales made mellow by the mists and
setting sun.
The Mother of the mystery walks her secret ways.
As old as time, and born of time itself She passes,
quiet, stealthy and unseen.
Shuddering with the cloying cold that surely
soon will come.
Making Summer's sun and warmth a half
remembered dream.
And as She passes, with caressing touch, She
plucks the life from all She does survey
and drops it, gently as a falling leaf, into
a basket made of dark decay.
Over all the land She wanders, dogged by
shades of darkness and of fear,
pausing for a while at homesteads locked
against the Crone,
to scratch at door and window or to
freeze the child's tear
who hears her in the chimney softly
moan.
When She has passed the land is
locked in Winter's sere and snowy hold.
The now dead sun hangs like a pearl in
the pewter bowl of sky,
yet folk in Albion, huddled round the
fires against the cold
quietly wait to hear from far a future
Child's cry.

Written in 1989, and originally published in ASH magazine no. 3.