Each year I grew until I filled the whole valley. Humans came to admire my beauty, to stroke, to explore, to wonder. They don’t come around so much now.

My sleeves of ice are slowly disappearing, my diaphanous gown shrinks more each year. Water weeps from me and leaks downstream to join the rivers. My petticoats, embroidered by deep time, are fading. I can no longer cling to the smooth granite rocks I once grasped like precious jewellery. They rattle down into the valley below, tossed carelessly among the other stones. Lost to me now.

These days the humans look at me with sad faces, heads shaking. They lay woollen sheets on my emaciated form to cover my modesty. A tragic queen nearing her end.

My skirts have given up other treasures. Items lost — a walking boot, a dozen backpacks, sometimes a climber. Strong and fit men who made an error of judgement. I didn’t cause their death, the weather here is capricious, but I held them to my bosom until their dying breath. I sang them to sleep at night. Now they’ve been uncovered, stolen from me, and I have no one for company.

Before, I could afford to lose a little meltwater in the warmer months. It would drip and purl and babble downstream. I liked the sound, gentle, life affirming, musical. These days it positively cascades, dangerously powerful, a torrent which throws itself off the mountain with force when the sun is at its zenith.

The heavens continue to circle above. Dawn follows dark night. One day, when the sun edges over the peaks in the east, I will not be here to see it. The last scrap of my icy shroud will have melted, and there will be a deep cleft in the high valley where I once lay, where the mountains echo with the eagles’ cry.

Perhaps the humans will remember me, and say my name, and the clouds will hold my veil high above, should I ever return.