He is the sun, and so he basks in the warmth of his own radiance. He is not blinded but he blinds and the world colours and blushes from his gaze.
Now, lulled by a dwindling dawn chorus in the early warmth, the morning coaxes his eyes open. Are they dreams, or memories, that linger and blur his vision, forming tears of sadness and of joy?
He imagines he sees a woman walking away from him. Her bare white feet leaving frosty prints in her wake. Long tendrils of white iridescent hair escape from under her hooded cloak and fly untamed behind her.
Beside him, amongst the blades of soft green grass, rest tear-shaped snowflakes, their patterns forming kisses and stories of love and loss.
A chill of awareness mobilises him into swift pursuit of the beautiful stranger.
He follows the elusive lady to the waterfall at the edge of the valley. The powerful white frothy force of water emits angry sprays of warning.
The woman turns and reaches out her arm, her soft transparent skin slightly bronzed in places which he had infused with kisses. In painful recognition, he too reaches out and has but a moment’s tender touch of her fingertips before she steps into the torrent of the cascade of water. She disappears.
He finds no-one in the waterfall or beyond, only a cavernous mouth that spoke no words, offered no answers. He recalls only the penetrating chill, and the unseen force that thrusts his body back through the gushing water onto the rocks in the now raging river.
The search that ensues is long, desperate, and lonely, taking the Sun to other seasons. Cyclamens and snowdrops glow with gratitude as he crosses his seasonal boundaries, and no one ever wishes him away. But then they do not know that his heart is breaking.
Winter has arrived in her season. She now steps forward, and with a familiar chill filling her pores, she casts her soporific spell upon a world that needs to sleep, needs to rest.
Her heart sits like a white frosty pearl in her chest, beautiful, alluring, and hard. Yet only she knows the name of the barely discernible pulse that beats within. This is the pulse that beguiles the snow from her weeping eyes and gives us winter and allows her to winter.
This is ‘she’, in her full bloom. She now glances up at the clear blue winter sky to see the Sun smile down on her with rays of burning love. She feels his promise. He found her! She knew he would. Sequins of ice form on her forehead in recollection and … anticipation.
Love and pride had swelled her hard heart of pearl when she saw Autumn blossom and flourish. She had experienced passion, and joy. She had learned to love. Sometimes her cool soothing breeze visits their spirited earth child, the fruit of her dalliance with the Sun. Her beautiful stranger.