In Twilit Light (Part 1)

In twilit light, on a wintry night, I walked alone through the snow,
And it fell so thick that I lost my way, and didn’t know where to go.
Through the haze of that snowy maze I wandered like a ghost.
My mind played tricks that my heart couldn’t fix ‘til I reached an Ivory Coast.

This place was formed, or so it seemed, millennia ago
The ice had sat for centuries – its silence told me so.
A landscape not born of earth, it spired from the ground,
Made elegant and fearful, it spoke inhuman sounds.

I was amazed, as in all my days I had not spied this beach.
And through the snow and blowing wind, there was no Reason I could reach.
I stood confused and shivering, looking out on the ice,
When in the distance there charged a boat – I know for I looked twice.

Closer and closer that barge did sail, as it cracked and cricked and moaned
And on the deck I saw a man atop an icy throne.
His crown was slick and his breath was thick as he neared the shining shore
And all around, as he touched the ground, howls broke the Silent North.

I turned around, about to run, but was stopped in my trudging tracks;
As before me stood a steaming, silent, staring Snow Wolf pack.
I looked up to the Heavens, a tear frozen on my cheek.
“This is the end,” I told myself, “to the adventures you have seeked.”

I remembered Africa, hot and dry, I remembered Mozambique.
I remembered Egypt with its dusty tombs, and the Isles of the Greeks.
I remembered home, just miles away, a cabin in the dark.
I remembered Quest, my trusty mutt, I remembered his loyal bark.

The Wolf King’s shadow loomed deadly by my feet.
I felt the heat his body beat upon the Arctic sheets.
Without looking back I said the words that were running through my head,
“Mysterious King, I know you not, why would you want me dead?”

He did not grant an answer, he did not think to speak;
Instead he put one hot, hot hand on my trembling physique.
And in that touch some magic rushed form his hand into mine,
His story flooded all my thoughts, rough and unrefined.

There was a time, though it’s hard to know, when he was just a boy.
He did the things a boy would do – found trouble, sadness, joy.
He lived amongst a people in a valley in the Sun,
Whose beams beat gold upon the land since the Sun’s time had begun.

TO BE CONTINUED……