These Are My People: Lydia Khandro

Dried brown leaves and gray branches of solemn cycle

ignite to become golden lakes of wild hip-deep depths

The Blue Ridge Mother bears twice the ritual witness

standing cool, wrapped in the garment of her ancestor,

cradling her Divinity with skirts raising winds of power.

Her hair halos with the light of life, love, and nurturing.

She is the Great Mother bearing her Winter-born in holiness