Lavu

Lapsi. Child. My little one
Lies sleeping in the hay
The pelts of wolves tucked up
Around her rosy face.
Grey shadows born in campfire
Flicker, dance in ritual upon the hide
Separating our souls from the forest.
In the indigo of afternoon
She touches kaleidoscopes of ice and laughs
Because they taste and feel like fire
But she cries when the bright stars are away
So I whisper tales of wilderness:
How spirits soar howling over the bleak plain
And birds make soft their little nests
How the sky-fox plays with ephemera
Makes light-shows, shifting veils.
She dreams.

In the sharp grey morning
When the fierce air slices like a knife
We will hunt, delight in its raw pounding heat
Stifle the keening shrill agonies
And watch the black blood become rock in snow
Rub our calloused hands
Perform cutting of meat, ritual of survival,
And filling ourselves, becoming warm,
Remember again tenderness.