A man sits by the hearth fire, dreaming.
His mind, fatigued, wanders over a wasteland of forgotten memory. He sees a loved ones face, sees a parting gift, a last farewell, an empty grave. He watches from a wintry hill, a burning manor, the screams, familiar. He walks among statues of black ice painstakingly sculpted, each feature, a masterpiece among many. He watches as they shatter before his eyes, destroyed by the gun held before him. His mind reels, spinning, shakes of the cobwebs of dream and memory. The man awakes, gasping, his eyes spinning wildly, his heart falters, within his chest. He falls back towards the far wall of the room, memory, flooding back, to reclaim its place inside his skull. He screams once loudly, and falls, his heart failing, limbs thrashing, he stills at last, release sought, is found, his body cools, beneath the flickering light.

The Autumn leaves skirl in misty wind, to press against the sleek black hair, of the girl I saw, standing there, in the rustling leaves. The wind lifts her hair. Perhaps it carries tidings of a watcher, standing, for the girl turns slowly, gray eyes wide, arms bent, feet set for flight. She quivers in startled fear, as a hare, when caught unawares. And she is gone. I stand there,  bereaved, that vision of Autumnal Beauty torn from my unwilling eyes. I tremble, standing there, and then turn back, slowly. My heart heavy, my eyes unseeing.

As I stumble, through a misty glen, steps uncaring, thoughts unheeded, I trip on a fallen branch, sprawled, I lay, beneath the twinkling stars and the moon, pale light shining down. I raise my head, and in that doubtful ray of shimmering light, I see her, hair a wave of night, her eyes like orbs of white fire. I stare, entranced, unmoving beneath the stars, and hesitantly, as a deer might when venturing out from twilit shadow, she steps forward. Clothed in naught but skin, illumined by radiant moonlight, till it seems as alabaster, she moves forward, slowly, till her steps take her to stand before me, a quivering vision of dreams and moonlight made real.

A chill wind blows between us, and her hair flows in the breeze , a shining pennant of midnight black. She kneels before me, her eyes troubled, as though she seeks something within, an elusive memory, that frustrates her every attempt to bring it forth, into the light of remembrance. A tear wells slowly in her eye, and then falls, shining, a pearl of moonlight ,  down her shadowed face, to fall onto mine, a salty drop of heartfelt sorrow. We stay as such for a time long, till at last the grey dawn faintly lights the eastern sky. Then she stands. I try to reach out, to call for her, but I am still, my body betrays me.

She turns and vanishes into shadow, a moonlit dream, gone forever. I weep, the tears falling softly, to strike the grassy ground below, where still her warmth does faintly stay. I lie there prone, for an eternity of grief, head bowed 'neath weight of sorrow. But then, through the misty grief that shrouds my mind, I hear a sound of rustling leaves. My eyes gaze up,  my form unmoving, as something from the grey trees comes, silent save for the quiet sound of branches moved, and leaves trod down. And then she comes, a vision of hearts desire, a balm for grieving soul.

My breath catches as I see her, standing there. In one hand she holds a stone bowl,water within. She steps froward, her eyes touch mine and hold them, as the eons age past. The bowl is set beside me. I look away, startled. The moment, broken, fades away. I look at her once more, her eyes, now pleading, remain fixed on the bowl beside me, water fresh and sweet. I drink. And then, when first is quenched, she kneels once more beside me, and then to the ground, knees tucked against her shuddering breast, she curls down beside me. And she sleeps, her breathing slow and deep. I tumble far into black oblivion.

I awaken on the grassy turf, the sun not past the tallest trees. I lie there still, remembrance slow in coming. Then my eyes dash madly; the moonlit dream no longer rests beside me. But then my gaze finds her, no longer white, but golden. Her hair ripples in the breeze. My heart resumes its normal cadence. I watch her,  eyes fixed, never moving, never leaving,  for fear that vision of purest dream be removed from my sight. She wades in a green and leafy pool, that my eyes did not observe,  in the dark of midnight hence. She turns to look at me,  every supple movement a tribute to gods perfection. Her gaze holds me there, transfixed beneath her light filled stare. Then she turns, and wading deep, submerges beneath the verdant pool.

I stand, my limbs sore from lying there, and make my way towards the glittering pool. I stare into its depths, searching, waiting. At length she ascends, hair dripping, eyes shining, skin gleaming, wet with sunlight. At last she rises from forest pool, and in so doing, the light seems to shine over every curve of sunlit form. She turns and walks into the darksome  shade of forest green. I follow her. We walk for a time unremembered, she before, and I behind, reveling in the sun filled cracks in forest roof. At length we come to a shaded hollow, where mist still swirls, hidden from that burning glare. She descends, and I follow her.

Deep within, two trees stand there, one oak, one elm, there branches twining 'neath gray shot sky. A depression lies there, before those two lords of forest dim, softly bedded with Autumn leaves. She lies there, and I beside her, clothes forgotten in misty glen. And here I pause, for you, my reader, need not know what happened there , beneath the twining, twisting branches, between me and my moonlit dream. For that is mine, and mine alone. I say only that, in later days, in later nights, when she and I walked beneath the moon as Adam did, and as Eve did, before  the dreadful sin, we walked there with remembrance always of that dell and misty grove, and the creaking branches remind us, always, as they forever shall, till the end of our lives, rain filled days, and sparkling nights, beneath the moon.

On snowy days, on wintry nights, the snowflakes shine like suns, and the stars, are coldly bright. The frost creeps over broken stones, and around the trunks of trees. The birds are all asleep now, the bears have sought their den, and absent from the creaking branches, the squirrels chattering speech. And though many lie sleeping, awaiting the life of spring, still some lie, frosted, the worms will wait till spring. Deep within the wintry woods, a cabin sits, still and quiet, no light within. The snow covers the door, and the walls are buried 'neath glittering shroud of creeping frost, while all around the trees whisper sadly to the moaning call of frosty wind. Against one such sits a man alone. Black his flesh, his eyes shriveled, his hands claws that reach, vainly, towards departed life. The wind howls through bare, black trees, and shifts the coverlet of snow that smothers the land, the green forgotten, 'neath shroud of white.