She asked me for a gift.

and I gave her a memory.

A blinding swift rush of wind across a winter-bleached field at sunrise
when the breath comes sharp and crisp,
like the virgin breath of a newborn into now air-filled lungs,
and the frost like jewels in the waxen hair of the earth,
and the skeleton forest of oak and ash a black shadow sprouting details
as the sun crests the hill,
and her eyes shining like emeralds in the morning light.

This I gave to her,
to hold through age and night.

And the day became a candle in the cave of her mind,
While her story continued