I wonder what ghosts walk in the spring?
- ashlyme

The Mari. Year-kings. Things in ribbons and bright leaves,
but the bone is hard underneath; if you push the mask aside,
you will always see it.
- sovay


The year-king is weak and wistful in winter,
berry-bough wreath-bright in autumn,
willow-waisted and supple in spring.

He stalks summer glades in buttercup and burgundy.
This is the season of his high glory:
ducking past waving wands of emerging leaf-bloom,
visiting bird-families above the browning bracken,
watching deep pools fill in sudden sun-showers.

The pasture-people make him into his own mask:
braid bees and wild thyme in his long locks,
gift him herbary honey and roast hedgehogs,
pile at his feet high heaps of cicada-chrysalises,
gleaming shells of gossamer-bronze lace.

But at summer's end, salt and sea pink-stained,
the seabird-crowded cliffs sing of his sorrow.

All seasons shade into the silence after song;
solstice-placed stones take up twilight-chill,
the nights lengthen into dark:

there will always be blood to bring the year back.