“Anon, winter’s chill draws near. Yet, it is only upon arrival home it will befall; separate wintry chambers await us, destined to imprison.” With mocking tongue, she bitterly pronounces home as a wretched irony.
With quiet resign, Romeo gently touches her face. “Home lies within us, doth remember.”
She nods tearfully, holding back a flood of emotion that rises to drown her. They embrace one last time and then start the journey back through the snow together, holding hands for a brief time before they must part. Drenched and sodden, they reach the jaws of the city at the end of the secluded forest. They pause to let their lips impart a final goodbye; a sweet innocent pleasure tainted by the bitter finality of the moment. With one last longing glance, turning away from one another, their fingertips and then their gaze the last to break, each turns to head down the separate path they need to walk alone. The impenetrable snowfall serves as a screen, precluding the temptation for a look back. Though they have been in the forest for hours, at that moment, they both begin to sense the everlasting cold that has been stealing over them.
What they do not know is that their journey together has not yet ended. The violent declaration would eventually prove to be a weaker deterrent in their love for one another than the author might have hoped. Though they have chosen to end their illicit romance here on this day to appease the violence brewing between their own relatives, their love a casualty in the protection of those very same people, it will not last long. The magnetism of their connection is far too strong. This “end” has become only an interlude in the tragic production of sorrow and sacrifice they will lead on the road to eventual forgiveness, laced with deep regret, between two tormented families.
Encrusted in ice, a pale pink bloom succumbs to its new found weight and falls to the ground.
Deeply in love, these children of Montagues and Capulets, resembling an early spring, succumb to a new, but forbidden union. This romance is new and virtuous, a promissory note of future absolution for all who are graced by it. Bright and bold, they herald a new age, engendering a feasible treaty between embattled families. But, as is the custom of Mother Nature, this blush of spring will be extinguished by a late winter’s wrath. It is too trusting; too vulnerable and delicate to survive through the impossible frigidity of this last winter storm. Their parents, who hold an icy grudge against the opposing family, will never allow this "spring" to come. The seasons clash, but the rime of cold prejudice and arctic judgment strike swiftly, crushing the new blossoms.
They believe they are assassinating an idea, never to be reborn, but their children themselves will suffer the effect of their fateful chill, they will be the blossoms to fall. Winter’s last arrogant and crushing act will be to destroy these hopeful, yet defenseless blooms; their own family, and in the process, unknowingly obliterate their own future.
Tragically beautiful in every sense, this delicate pink bloom in ice, the metaphor parallels a misguided parent protecting a child. While masked as its guardian, the pristine ice engulfs the opening flower bud, freezing it in time, never to grow old and wilt. Though the weight causes it to fall from the life sustaining tree, the ice functions as armor, protecting it from the fall and then envelops it; an insulator from the cold. The bloom is petrified, suspended in beauty and time in its glass cage. The tragedy befalls as the ice starts to melt. The flower has fallen away from its life-giver, its caretaker, and is exposed to the elements. It will quickly wilt and die; fatally wounded by the shock of the cold, taken a great deal before its time.
Oh, but what a beautiful sight to behold.
What was my task?
Describe Romeo and Juliet breaking up in a snowstorm…
What was my task?
Describe Romeo and Juliet breaking up in a snowstorm…
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