As Ever Like the Sun & Moon at War

1- ☼

Alone he wanders, journey'd from his home

our Pilgrim on adventure half his own

in search of people, places he may call

new friends and land on which he will begin

a life wherein he won't be forc'd to bear

the guilt residing heavy in his heart;

but haunted by his mind asunder split

he tosses, turns within his bedding cold;

the wind, it pierces through his porous skin

excreting sweat not by his heat but stress; 10

this chill that courses wretched through his bones;

a sinister and acrid zephyr's blow

that threatens madness on his very soul.

With shock and sense of self-defending will

he shoots upright to ward impending foes

of evil from his mind, lest he should fall

before accomplishing his pilgrimage

to sanctuary promis'd him by self-

determination. Destiny declar'd.

Awaken'd and aware he checks around,                        20

surveys the dunes at either hand from his

small camp sequester'd twixt the stony ridge

formations weather'd by the blasting sands,

relentless chisel of our Mother's hand

who buffets even hardest stone to naught

with time and breath to ravage that which is

so that tomorrow that which is hath chang'd

 and overmorrow—which belabour'd here

is yet too far for any to predict,

obscur'd as always under goss'mer veil                    30

of future's jealous guard of its events—

conducts with it so little recogniz'd

for what it once had been when first our eyes

did lay upon it captivated gaze.

Our Pilgrim casts away his creeping doubt

and rubs the vestiges of sleep from his

two eyes with knuckles white with shaking fright.

He stills his hands upon his lap before

deciding at this time — still twilit gray                      

before the dawn — that now he will begin 40

to rise from bed and start upon his day                     

toward the North on road that ever winds

for he can't know just what it holds for him,

but can that he must put his heels down

upon its track to someday reach its end,

where finally his efforts will reward

him life worth living as all penance should,