Iounn

For many long years I was an old
woman early grayed and wrinkled before my time
There were lines around my eyes
and across my brow when I was but a girl
My body frail and hunched my skin so parched
It was not until I carried the apples in my ashwood box
That I became a youth in middle age

My cheeks grew rosy and my eyes were bright
I frolicked danced with gliding step
My hair grew long and full the gray was gone
My face grew round and lines unseen
But when those fruits were robbed from me
I fell upon the ground
I wept and cried raw sobs
My body shook
as hollow as the ashwood box
For my sweet apples promise of my days were gone
My daughters and my sons were gone

I screamed so shrill
The gentle creatures who attended me
Ran off in fear
I became wild and wolfen with ragged fangs and claws
And my fur turned gray
My spine a broken branch bent by the breeze
And no fruits fell

My darling
Poet, bard, singer of dreams
I did not find you yet
But somehow I was saved
The apples all returned to me
A daughter and a son
Their heads so round and damp their shining eyes
Skin pinked with birth their elfish cries
I would have died my love I would have died without them
As I almost died when their predecessors stolen were
They brought me back my youth my life
that had not existed truly until them

And so I sat my lap so full my breasts engorged
I sat and gods came forth to ressurect their youth
To worship me again with glyphs for gifts
But still the trickster preyed his bitter grin his prying hands
He could no longer take what now was fully mine

My hair spills round your shoulder
and my body folds, unfolds in apple blossom births
For now I am bestowed with children two
The apples of the world
And you my love and you