The bridge stood in splendour
Its moss free bricks
Clean and dutifully placed.
A lone woman wandered
through the forest sticks
In sturdy clothes, no lace.
Her light steps unheard
Her cloak left unseen
She approached the wooden gates.
Called to the armoured guard
Whose face was quite mean
Her fate now to wait.
She was shooed to the woods
To travel under her black hood
Taking her magic goods
Elsewhere.
Red rises in the light of a waning sun.
Dusk conquers the sky, silent and proud,
Before Lady Moon rides her darkness
And claims her throne once more.
From the ground, forests watch the game
Repeated nightly, predictable,
Before turning their eyes inward.
The ground covering their twining roots
Is warmed by bloodied leaves
Dropped from the skyward limbs.
Night’s Queen bids forth the cold
And sends the westward wind howling in the eerie calm.
Fall drifts away, hand in hand with Father Time,
And passes Winter, serene under a clock of frost.
The forests shiver with the change,
Watch drying leaves, rust, crumple, disintegrate.
Dawn sounds the trumpet charge,
Ahead of Lord Sun on his sea of blue,
And chases Lady Moon past the horizon once more.
The trees turn their eyes inward, closing them tight,
Its time to slumber, despite warming rays of light.
Moonlight dances on stilled waters
gracefully covering mossy shores.
Trees watch in stoic silence,
Like Statues guarding Nature’s Secrets.
Footsteps break the calming night,
Approaching the clear lake in awe.
In ethereal beauty, she stands barefoot,
A nymph whose wings glitter brighter than stars.
Her emerald eyes shimmer with promise
A siren’s voice sounds in the distance.
Light as air, she moves upon the water,
Finding her place in the night’s music.
Patterns form on the surface around her,
Chaotic and Beautiful under the Moon’s gaze.
Wings flutter in softened shadows
Lifting the nymph higher just to free fall.
The space is filled by her glowing prescence
Though she vanishes amongst the trees
Like an unformed thought is swallowed by the mind.
Removed from sight, the fireflies fade away,
A closing curtain on something unseen
And yet I know it was more than a dream.
Kember's Journey 