Helicon

Once, when this mountain was in its infancy,
I had wings:

a coral cloak that fluttered like tattered pennants
in katabatic winds

that spread through the valley like clemency,
and along veins of rock,

filling villages with chilblains, dampening
the vain hopes

of cattle hoping for a thaw. When the cold came,
it turned eddies

into still circles and waterfalls into walls
of splintered ice.

The wind played a lovely waltz but my cloak
could not suffice

to keep out the bitter raw air. My soft feet
grew numb,

my laurel staff snapped, and the supposed hot springs
were dead beneath

the ground. And when I found the story stones,
they were dumb.