Revision: Snowdrop 2.2 - The Fruit of the Wood

The Fruit of the Wood

They watch the moils of the midnight fair
as they weave their song, reciting the words
of the land and the sea. Linked by fingers,
the brother and sister sing from a boulder
that acts as their stage - a stirrup of granite
embedded in chalk. The boy is the sea,
his hair the weed that winnows the brine;
the girl is the land, the green of her skin
the grassy pastures that patchwork the Downs.

"... we'll save our child and heal her sores -
we'll love again, my sea, my sea."

A flurry of clapping confirms the conclusion
of their turn on the rock. They take a moment
to salute their patrons, their smiles professional
- as if seasoned beyond their seeming years.
He kisses her cheek; she kicks his shin
and together they leap from the ledge of the set.
The fair engulfs them: a glamour of shadows
indulging in dance, in drama, in gossip
caught on the meadow clung to the hill.

Hearing the horns of the hunters' return,
the jaden siblings jostle their way
through legs and hips, a hustle, a push;
in spurts they clamber, splicing the crowds
in a roil of rebukes to reach the knoll
where the queen of the feast fashions her court.
They see her face the feral men,
witness the piling of plunder before her -
lifeless prizes plucked from the woods.