Decades denied entrance she wears hard into the gate.

They trickle past in their sixes and sevens, white haired, black eyed, hopeful, weeping, greedy, desperate. She plays knucklebones to pass the time. Beyond all quotas. Ripe with waiting, full to bursting, charged with secret learning. They have no tongue in common.

Walls of gold and heavy fruit. She spits seeds in the black, black earth, pulls shoots up by the roots when they dare go unveiled before her. Seeds among stones, among shallow ground, in a well-drained field. The beams are sound but the pipes are shot.

She circumnutates. Arianrhod. She echoes to the sound of youth and long-distant tides. Waveless, stony beeches.

The gate opens and he is there, her radiant bride, teeth and hooves bloody, bloody, who puzzled his way out to this meeting. She ends her waiting and folds the maze up in her sails.