LOST WITHIN THE TEMPLE OF NIGHT I prowl with the care of small game beneath the gaze of the last blind giants sprouting black claw shadows grasping at black drowning sky wiser than the legends of this mountain older than anything that eats living by moments longer than a doomed prey's final breath blood hungry roots and bone dry twigs wrapping around my softer quicker limbs melting my skin into supple new leaf my eyes into knots of bark and moss Lost Within the Temple of Night I light eleven thousand candles each one a prayer that I may light the next sparks of ice flying into the forever sky in sweet liturgies of silence too cold to warm my chillblained hands too dim to guide my way yet without them I would walk alone forget that I am only a single flame for the astronomers have it all wrong the stars really are but ancient greybeards holding torches of rag and pitch laughing into the void Lost Within the Temple of Night something with horns jaws and jagged dreams leaps all at once from a pit of soft clay and rotted green things sinks obsidian teeth into my heart swallowing me whole digesting my memories manners morals plans scams fashions follies passing my body out again leaving me to lay in my life's waste watching my yesterdays lumber away from my fading sight in a heap of blood and fur to sleep in a damp hole Lost Within the Temple of Night I join the company of giant and torch and slaughter horn prowling the gloom to sate the growl of my empty belly with two swift cloven feet a nose to taste every scent long pointed ears for picking out useful melodies eyes that spy careless shadows and fast growing claws
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This poem is from On Pagan Roads Copyright © 2004 David Arv Bragi