Lament's Death

Small Lament, she picked her skirts from the pond, sick with blushing pink algae.
'The water isn't good,' she thought, as she grabbed her bucket and stumbled, barefoot, down the heathered hill.

"You got nothin?"...Lement stood, ready for a strike.
"You ain't eating, then..." The Missus dried her hands on an apron soiled with shit, and the vomit of men.

Lament curled up, like a tiny red fox. Her poor bones frozen, as the November frost whispered ice on her ears, her fingertips, her nose...

Trees swayed in the drag of late Autumn wind, and Lament was swept to sleep by the cold hand of the Mountain.

'The time for keening has come, will you chop your share?' The voice whispered through the trees.

Lament shook off her hoary slumber. She peered out through falling crystals of snow that had gathered on her eyelashes. He hair was blackened, her lips were icy purple.

"Will you do your share?" he asked draping a blanket that was no less than warmth and light, on her quivering body.

"I will," she answered, her words drifting, falling from her in white death.

'You'll night die on this night..' with that he swept Lament into his deer driven sleigh.

The night twinkled it's gratitude...Lament found home.