A surprise challenge to celebrate the leap year! Thanks so much, again, to Kristina for inviting me to participate - it's been a lot of fun!

“Withering Wind”
Watercolor and Acryla-gouache, 13x17

Torn between love of homeland and romantic love, the Irish hero Oisin returns to the mortal world after spending 300 years in the land of youth, Tir na Nog. His fairy wife has given him her horse, and has warned him not to dismount. But of course, his feet touch the ground, all that time catches up with him, and he flits through all the seasons of a lifetime in seconds.

“‘O flaming lion of the world, O when will you turn to your rest?’
I saw from a distant saddle; from the earth she made her moan:
‘I would die like a small withered leaf in the autumn, for breast unto breast
We shall mingle no more, nor our gazes empty their sweetness lone
In the isles of the farthest seas where only the spirits come.’”

-William Butler Yeats,
The Wanderings of Oisin