Egrets

Spent, tired across waters unknown,
Driven from your old, warm nests,
Biting winds, bone-clinging, unyielding snow,
This is not your home.

Who sent you here, where we live and die?
With your head held high you stay in my lands,
What do you come as?

A raider from the desert, slave to the sand,
Where mountains you made dust with the wind in your wings?
Ran away from the sun, like

A refugee running from war, 
With your lands burnt, scorched by someone you knew,
Who meant you no harm

What did you hope to find so far away,
In this stark stretch of cold that never ends?
You may want to live, but we preserve

This is not that village in the hills,
With a green lake in a sea of white banks
Where you perch in the temple when the sun goes down,
Worshipped like a faceless god by a man of many shapes
and a broken heart he hides from you

Here, it's cold.