The Crone’s dark shadow creeps across the land.

Thrice she strikes the blunted staff of her sickle upon the earth and bids her daughter, “Rest and bear no more.”

The brittle wasted ground beneath her cracks.

The young mother yields, and taking the sickle from the Crone slays all that feeds un-weaned  from her bosom.

Slouched and ailing she shepherds the fallen into the Crone’s black shadow,

and in that fertile darkness,

slumbers.