So the land is laid down again. Offering her last breaths, struggling to keep our her reddened eyes.

The leaves pay homage to her greater sacrifice, and they too, fall. They refuse to live without her.

As the veil is lowered over our Maiden’s face, her lips offer a final, blown kiss of ice and grit.

The mourning will last for only a short while now, as we know she has visited this dark place before.

A shallow reminder of warmer days, her echo resounds in the belly of the corpse we now call home.

Babies are born and beasts do run wild, though to what ends, I do not know.

Are we being reprimanded by the firm hand of she who would die before allowing us to kill ourselves?

She who loves us all enough to spare us from our own circus of self-destruction.

Maybe she dies, in this way, so that for a moment or two, the fearful will hear her labored breaths, and be reminded that our many hearts beat as one, in the name of nothing. For our Sweet Mama’s sacrifice.