Winter comes along.
I’ll sleep well by firelight’s glow.
The banshee sings her lonesome song,
soft and dark and low.

The snows blow against my door,
Or is it her song of releasing?
Releasing to something more
Beyond this world’s keeping.

The banshee comes beside my bed,
This longest night of all.
She lays beside, kisses my head,
as soft snows fall.

[Hayley Arrington is a writer of mythological and dark poetry and prose. She believes that myth is a verdant landscape where the Goddesses and Gods of old can be felt in the present. Her writings have appeared in a variety of venues, most recently in Weird Fiction Quarterly, The Wisdom of Cerridwen: Transforming in Her Cosmic Brew, and Lady of the Forge: Stories and Art Dedicated to the Goddess Brigid.]