Ouroboros Spine ugguanik ⏞⏟

THE SIXTH SONG

at last lynx came to her.

kukutux lifted her head from the snow.

sister. your husband is dead.

tears stung her eyes.

i know this.

what do you mourn now?

i mourn my own hope.

it is time to have renewed hope.

but i do not want a new husband. i do not want to start again. i do not want to continue my mourning.

if you stop now, you know what will happen.

the spirits, caught between this world and the next, unable to free themselves or be freed. kukutux would not condemn them to that.

i know this thing. i do not want to start again. i do not want to live again.

the yellow eyes glowed, shards of sunlight in the long dark.

make another sort of beginning.

tonight the death song of kukutux and of sialuk would come late, two voices winding around one another and fading over the conifer forest. not sung again.

we ask for healing.

we know the green must come again.

remove the winter from our bones.

we shed it as grandfather bear leaves his snow parka behind.

take it from us.

take it with you to the dancing lights.

our love will warm your shoulders there.