Winter and Summer

~

Winter roared with hearty chuckles, whipping his cold tresses through the limbs of the trees, shaking skeletonal. Careening through the landscape covering all with white confetti at his jubilations, creating flurries of chaos as he rolled head over heels. Breathing icy patterns across the landscape he laughed sending tingling shivers that drew cracks across the glass panes of the houses. He danced wild through towns and valleys till suddenly he came to a crashing halt at the sight of her huddled up, wet and bedraggled clinging to a stray sheep in a small indentation of the hillside. He stood silent watching her for a little until he moved slowly now with tenderness to try and comfort her but the coldness jabbed through her and she cried and pressing on the sheep tore the last remaining breath from it. Gasping with shock he stumbled back, running from her until he stood at a distance and wept and cried, pouring himself out across the land in rivulets of his melted self till he had wept himself away and the air began to breathe warmly again. She shook herself up then abandoning the carcass of her despair and tentatively began to skip, lightly and hesitantly until she was sure of her feet and they began to move with the assured confidence of youth. Soon her laughter tinkled through the air sending showers of light and colour across the landscape. She flicked water lightly from the ground, running her fingers across the branches of the trees and watching them burst forth, shaking tickilish beneath her flesh, flowers pressing their faces forward to touch hers. Merrily she danced and danced in twirling flashes of brightness, smiling she ran up and down the hills and valleys sending birds chattering madly in the sky, looping her long golden hair through the boughs and strewn lightly across the streams bubbling with soft ribbons of steam glistening in the air. Her laughter caught in her throat then at the sight of him cowering at the base of a dense grove of trees by the water, trying to cling onto what fragments of cool shade he could gather to him. She tried to comfort him but his convulsions of pain at her fiery presence prevented her from doing so and she could but look disheartened at his dishevellness. So she closed her eyes tight and into a burst of fiery flames she did consume herself, her hot blood and breath poured into a spectacular show until the flames did dwindle and the air cool. He rose from the shadows then, slinking back out into the open space, testing his feet lightly with small rippling breezes of coolness, stretching his fingers to caress the air lightly around him. Padding over to her lying sprawled on the ground exhausted and he kissed her lightly on the cheek and she smiled tiredly, 'live now my love'...