When wood creaks
And smells of incense,
Your eye widens and leaks...
Your heart stops and listens.
The dark is horizontal;
Too compressed to allow a flame
Ignite.
The dark is not elemental;
Surreal enough to wrench the tame
And burn.
But this wood holds a
Light,
And this wood enjoys
To perish.
It is not natural for this bird in
Flight,
To care for our joys
And allow its perfect nature
Blemish.
The wood halts
And the fire is beckoning.
A figure throws salts
Into the air, cleansing.
"Carpe diem!", the figure yells.
A woman, dying, nonetheless.
A spark from her chest expels,
A spark younger than hers
Nevertheless.
She ceases to exist.
Our men, a quartet,
Approaches the wood in tandem.
A ballet of faces rued which in time
Maddened.
The wood they open,
Thrown aside.
Myths of olden
Spread in wide.
On a table they see
Cards arranged.
The most colorful depictions
Laid displayed.
"Death", "The Chariot",
"The Devil", "The Hermit."
They make an arc
Around their beacon.
"La Lune", it read, and light
She permit.
La Lune burned,
But our men felt no heat.
It grew in might,
Our men cried in defeat.
No beauty they have ever seen;
Though beauty they had never known.
With their hands many women they have seen,
And neither they could ever own.
However, something wicked
They all shared.
A thought in common;
To corruption they'll be led.
With laced hands
To their plan they succumbed.
Across various lands
Traveled La Lune.
A blessing she was
To the few who cherished her.
She was prayed to during mass,
Our love, La Lune, our
Healer.
La Lune unto the dark drew dimensions,
Time she established.
La Lune grew never licentious;
Holy, virgin, never tarnished.
The quartet squandered
La Lune's power the most.
Their last days they too leisured
And for their final breath they raised a toast.
"May La Lune be ours,"
The men recited, "Now
And forever, until the
Saints come marching in."
And their souls breathed dead.
A week has passed.
A month or two followed.
La Lune drawn remained
Over a table, forever borrowed.
Words are carried by winds
And the wind is pleasant to hear.
La Lune enjoyed to listen
And the old words to her chest brought a tear.
"May La Lune remain with them," La Lune mocked.
A woman in the card's stead now stood.
Regal, queenly, malicious,
Toxic and addictive to us.
By a whisper, the dead rose.
Their bodies mangled and weathered.
Among the living they roamed.
La Lune for them their fault she played
And through their suffering they were judged.
La Lune, unforgiving.
Yet, an unlikely being
Dawned over the broken Lune.
St. Peter cursed the men's wickedness
And forced them into their eternal dwelling.
"Go home now, dearest," St. Peter rose,
And hung the moon among the blue and stars.
"At last," declared La Lune,
And for eons her noose kept her unharmed.
