Maiden Memory. An Alternate Version.

I In winter Maiden Memory cannot recall the names of frozen things. She tries to stare through winter's disguises but everything is alien and out of place. 'They seem happy to sleep, ' she says, but doesn't believe it. So she wanders over the wide glacier, down corridors of ice, past snow mountains, searching for some place of warmth. 'I know it's Here or There or in-between Here and There'... She does not complain or panic, even fear has no impact. But she is soon bored with this still, empty, colorless landscape. She wants warmth, brightness, movement! She is briefly heartened when a shaft of light pierces the gray pall above and promises many forms of illumination to come. 'Mother, can I leave this place now? ' II The whole time I watched that spoiled brat who makes of Spring a season of her own devising: warm, gentle rains, all day soft sunlight, all night cool fragrant gardens. Human beings, awakened from their winter spell, slowly come alive to spring's spell. They are content and controlled by their happiness. I want this drug which empties the mind and drains its contents - regrets, worries, aches, worries. etc. etc. My mind is already filling up, thought-things assume patterns, world-things multiply, a traffic of ideas begins, people imagine brightnesss even at night, their minds are cleansed. What is there not to like? ... But my memory is long. I trudge through the weight of time, carrying baggage that won't stay put but drags itself behind me, even if I try to abandon it. Sometimes I feel all bent and broken, but still must drag it all or hoist it over my shoulders like a hunchback.Such is my fate from my long memory. I am haunted by the edges of space and the curves of time. Oh, how I want to know your leaping freedom! 'Mother, can I stay here forever? '