Ring Around the Reindeer

More about Ring Around the Reindeer

They stood there like two chords from an old Nordic folk song—
the man in midnight blue, the girl in winter-berry red,
and the reindeer wearing their antlers like slow-growing lightning.

The younger one held the rope as if it were a question
she hadn’t decided to ask yet.
The older one leaned slightly, the way people do
when they’ve lived long enough to trust animals
more than weather forecasts.

Between them, the reindeer made a quiet circle—
not a game, not a ritual,
just that invisible ring you get
when beings share a cold place
and warm breath.

Someone once said the world ends in fire or ice.
But in this moment it ends in neither—
it ends in a soft loop of twine,
a girl’s red hat,
and two reindeer drawing a silent orbit around
the only people who ever learned
to listen to snow.