On Being Asked to Depict the Snow Moon

On Being Asked to Depict the Snow Moon

What a cold, mysterious moon that must be.

I imagine her: starkest white, beautifully aloof,

like Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen. 

When I was very young, living in a cold climate,

I became afraid. I feared that a shard of ice

would lodge itself in my heart and freeze me.

My beautiful, distant mother was unable

to hug a child spontaneously — or indeed

to be anything spontaneous. So you see.

Instead I kept, defiant, a secret spark in my heart,

a hidden fire to warm myself from the inside.

And eventually I escaped. Now I inhabit sunlight.

In this fertile, sub-tropical home, we don’t know cold

as they do who live where winter comes with snow.

There is no such thing, here, as a snow moon. 

I shiver at the mere thought, and will forego, 

forevermore, such terrible, heart-halting beauty.

The moon here is a warm, embracing Goddess. 

Written to serve instead of a picture for the February #witchwithme challenge on Instagram.