Never, when you meet a soul mate
tell him so,

Or wear your heart upon
your sleeve,

Or offer it, well mixed with wine,
warm in a cup.

And never smile, and laugh, and
and walk away,

Pretending hearts are sturdy things,
or that you've spares,

Unless you've built up barriers
of driven snow,

And ice-encrusted adamant
to ward you well.

And never, ever, if you're wise,
let those walls fall.

Marcie Lynn Tentchoff is an Aurora Award winning poet/writer from the west coast of Canada. Her work has appeared in such magazines as On Spec, Weird Tales, Talebones, and Illumen, as well as in various anthologies and online publications.

Images of ice and cold have always been sort of coping mechanism symbols for me, hiding places against feeling, or caring too much. "Five Wisdoms of the Snow Queen" worked its way out of those images. After all, who could be colder, safer, more numbingly protected, than the Snow Queen herself?