O keeper of ruling rings,
in your name, time stands tall.
The ring is covenant’s command:
keep it, and it keeps you;
break it, and ice will fall from your sky.
At your pole a storm takes a sixfold seal;
order is your sigil, geometry ruling wind.
Time carves names, letter by letter,
with its deliberate iron hand.
I am lighter than water,
yet I have learned your weight:
when lightness endures,
it outweighs any stone.
From afar, gilded, magnificent;
up close, a splendor that tests endurance:
beauty without abiding
dissolves to nameless sleet.
High master of the sky,
stern and gracious,
teach me how to stand:
let the ring humble, not adorn.
And every thirty years I return,
I am sealed anew within your orbit.
