A Colorful Quest?
(Picks up where A Quiet Quest left off)
Angels danced in cold atomic orange
dust from days long past, whirling through sunbeams
cleaving the darkening sky like lace bridges
leading away from loss; Hen pauses; streams
of glory wend past, ensnare his sight, fix
his eyes on another sunset e’er beloved
Shayari, whose gasps rise as night fixes
what day broke, dials up cold for beloved
winter whose slap, though remembered, hasn’t left
just yet even though spring is on the move.
Henneth sat there on a ridge, in a cleft,
protected from winds’ frigid bite, this rock groove
itself none too warm but enough for night’s
repose and down below, a road’s in sight.
~ ~ ~
Hen drank tepid tea heated by lumir’s
fire though truth be told, he should have bought
a larger warming stone ’cause red lumir’s
got properties that constrain its much sought
heat, which this chill season does require.
Calendar be damned; it says spring has sprung
but out there in the wild, winter’s still mired.
Cursive clouds, sky’s writing, tells of storms flung
down from Storm King’s northern tower, that sad
creature whose punitive power swallows
aquamarine dawn now stormy gray clad,
an affirmation of snow tomorrow.
Henneth gathers his things, prepares to flee
the storm’s coming for a nice cave to be.
~ ~ ~
Henneth scrambled down from his rocky perch
as eagles took wing to sky dance with storm clouds.
He hoped their antics didn’t cause the clouds to burst.
Sharp of talon those birds were and so proud.
The Storm King, legend claimed, had a fondness
for such majestic birds who dwelt year-round
in Shayari’s enchanted boughs, honest.
Henneth slid down the crag’s rock side but found
no road or path and no sign that these miles
had e’er been trod, just walls of trees, no homes
hung in the their boughs and no village for miles.
He had hallucinated the path home
for none now wended through that tangle, wild
wood surrounded him, shelter he must find.
~ ~ ~
Into the deep forest he traipsed, his heart
beat an arrhythmic tattoo that he marched
to as ancient trees closed in around this part.
They spanned a thousand feet from where ant marched
to brush the sky and paint all in shadow
here below, though here and there, they glowed bright
as banana leaves, in mania, bowed
and bent in a dance that show’red all in light
and all this happened at the wind’s behest
and by its gentle caress which tricked eye
and mind alike, taking both from the test
half hid by wakening grass, which though high,
can’t contain the item there stashed which reaches
for Henneth as he, for shelter searches.
~ ~ ~
At last, just as snow sifted from the sky
Henneth spotted a dark hole in the ground.
He hurried towards it and tripped with a cry.
Something hard caught his foot–what had he found?
Feeling along the cold ground, his fingers
touched ice and recoiled as a glow bathed all,
not in banana mania triggered
by magic trees, but pure white light, whose call
echoed in bone, beat with his heart and wrapped
his fingers around a warming sword’s grip.
An enchanted blade, its crystal face trapped
his gaze, words corruscated, meaning dripped
slow as honey into his mind and know
he what he beheld–a Guardian Blade now.
~ ~ ~
But how could he, man of fifty plus springs
be chosen to wield a blade of ancient
power, one whose bearers bards often sing?
Yet here in hand was one such blade, ancient,
virile, in the hand of a nobody
from nowhere special, decades
past his prime, who had ventured out to see
what he could of the world before his shade
rips free, joins his deceased wife but not soon.
While he’d sat dumbstruck, the Storm King’s fury
had built to quite a bad blow, like a loon
he sits admiring a sword that can’t be
his; someone important must have dropped it.
To its guardian he must return it.
~ ~ ~
It stank of asparagus but the cave’s
pulchritude drew him on; its stone sparkled
like diamond dust scattered across concave
walls that bore up ‘neath forest’s feet, marbled
by granite, unkindled lumir revealed
by sword’s light and the sight made him forget
the stench ’till a baby’s cry made him reel.
Echoes of that cry caught his breath as threats
of never finding the baby mounted.
Tunnels twisted, crisscrossed, ended at cliffs,
but he kept up a search that amounted
to nothing as outside the storm broke, whiffs
of ice chased him as he looked in each cave.
He had to find that babe or he would rave.
~ ~ ~
To be continued tomorrow in An Enchanted Quest.
~ ~ ~
New Year, New Quest….
Join me every day for 116 days for a quest of a different sort. An offbeat, humorous rendering of Shayari’s magicked miles as seen through a regular Joe (who’s having a midlife walkabout) and the misfits he meets along the way. His life’s never going to be the same. Shayari might not be either.
Part adventure and part travelogue, through hapless Henneth you’ll get to see a whole lot more of Shayari and its Enchanted forest.
~ ~ ~
Sarn and his family are taking a brief hiatus while I work on publishing their first full length novel, tentatively titled Enchanted. You can read drafts of the first 15 chapters by hitting up its TOC page here.
If you miss them or missed parts of their holiday adventure, you can pick up a copy of their holiday novella:
Stars and Angels Sing: A Curse Breaker Novella
It’s a free read through Kindle Unlimited. Stars and Angels Sing is coming to print with gorgeous black and white images I hope before the end of January. There will also be an audio edition. I will post clips when I have edited them. Details to come!
Originally published at melindakucsera.com on January 7, 2016.
