The Lesson of The Groke

(from the SLCC prompt: write a poem about a favorite picture book you read when you were younger.)

In the long shadow

of Midas and Cassandra

resides the big-nosed

silent-stalking cold-bringer.

She may have come from an ant

or simply her high hideout

in the lifeless mountain heights

that she resembles and

she seeks heat and warmth and

the kindness of a fire’s halo of souls,

but only finds and leaves frozen

loneliness wherever she alights.

I met the Groke when I was still

fair, but like Sniff I felt not fear but

pity and read the warning in her

icy, solitary wake.