Queen of the Twilight

She strides to assume her crystal throne,
Her long pale hair flowing down her back.
Her gown is a blue worn by her alone, 
Bereft of jewels and adornment; the lack
Makes her seem austere, pure, and proud.
Her eyes are deepest, bluest black,
The color of the evenfall night sky’s shroud
When it wraps the world in soft wool.
Her feet flash across the half-world’s grass
As the flicker of light in a hollow skull,
Clad in slippers of fragile opalescent glass,
Ringing faint noises in the faint wind’s lull.

She assumes the throne by the river’s edge,
Flanked on either side by silver stone
Carved into the shape of a hawthorn hedge,
The color of new snow, of broken bone.
She takes her place, sinks on the seat,
Her hands clasping like the hands of a crone
On the arms, as if she could make meet
Her ascension, when there has been no queen
Ruling over the half-world now or ever.
She bows her head, eyes looking half-unseen
Across the mist that goes on forever,
Across the fields of undying marshfire-green.

But she is queen of the Twilight; she must be.
She lifts her chin, and more firmly sits down.
Then she turns her head, as if she could see
The old woman waiting with the crown
In the mists at the edge of the silver river.
She comes closer, and the frail blue gown
Trembles, once, with the queen’s slight shiver.
Then she lifts her head again, lifts it high,
And discards her fear as a garment cast
From a dancing maiden on the sly.
She must abandon all dreams of the past,
And to future queenship turn her eye.

The woman chants in the half-forgotten tongue
Of the people who lived in the half-world
When this half-faerie world still was young,
When the old woman was but herself a girl.
She places the crown on the bowed white head,
Pats down into place one stray pale curl,
And steps back. As if some signal had been said,
The queen’s head comes up, her eyes tearing.
The waters gather at the corners, slowly fall,
And the old woman listens, unbelieving, hearing
The sound, as they fall, of shattering crystal,
The sound all the Twilight has been fearing,

Or loving or hating, or hoping for. Can one say?
They knew that one day she would come,
The avatar of the One to whom they constantly pray,
The One whose name speaks in the drum
Of each high holy day, who is given First Feast,
And to each house each day is made welcome.
There is light in the old one’s eyes as in the east
When the sun rises in all its glory and light.
She kneels down before the crystal-teared queen,
Her heart fluttering like a rabbit in frantic flight,
Her eyes on the crystal flowers on the green.
The queen opens her eyes and looks into the Twilight,

And where she looks, there the mist parts slow,
And the moon shines, though no night has been
Seen here for millennia melting like snow
Since the age when the rule was taken by men,
And the kings learned to master the Twilight.
With this queen, the old times come again,
The very old times, the times of pure Night,
And Day, and Dawn, as well as Twilight’s gray.
The queen trembles, transported with rapture,
Her own heart singing a song very far away,
Her eyes filled with joy she cannot endure
As she looks upon the sun rising, the Day.

The mist parts; the sun rises, and the gold
Comes flooding as once it had used to do,
Comes flooding as it had used to of old,
Flows ‘cross the river, and the water turns blue.
Then the grass brightens to the hue of jade,
Turns living, and she hears a mortal dove coo.
She laughs aloud at what she has made,
The miracle she has wrought, the Day and Night
Returning to a world too long bereft of them.
She stands up and reaches out to the light
That makes each drop of dew shine like a gem,
Reflecting the pale face of the Queen of the Twilight.