Dark Winter Folk Tale

• Kaitlyn Blackwell, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2022

Snow sunken, messy red boots quivering in blue and pine needles.
Snarling, reeling, seething to strike and littered with tales of folklore, free of fable.
A fear that filled the void of broken twigs;
Snapping in the purple midnight, only washed white on a full moon,
And of flocks of sheep;
Ravaged and ripped into shreds of wool and flesh after a barren winter dawn,
Stood--an amalgamation of ancient, matted fur and craggy canines--before me.

I aimed the rifle.
A piercing silver bullet stood waiting to erase the plundering beast.
Afore I fired the shot, a gust of snow--howling, making the pines wail--
Fogged the veil.
I was abandoned in the cold clearing of old conifers.