I tumble into the yawning void, with naught ahead or behind.
IN distant warmth I recollect that perfumed
Eternity in the hall of my outward wonderment. "
How is it that all of this,
This whole glorious journey towards the glowing and
Adorned future, has been for nil?" My cracked lips utter.
In languid recollection,
Reveries return me to my most infantile and formative reflections.
Deep within my being, there remains an innermost place.
A humble cloister, unchanged and ancient in humility,
Where, in my beginnings, I laid the groundwork for my very self.
This place is where I once retreated in my truest infancy to meditate
On the most cold and stoic foundational rocks of this land,
Long before I laboured in the hall
And heaped stone with calloused hands.
Its foundations stretch deep into a rocky outcrop,
Surrounded on all sides by shifting sands,
And standing defiantly against the churning skies of filth.
My ragged form falls into its central
Piazza, kicking up dust upon its arrival.
My strained eyes gazed in nostalgic elation upon this long
Forgotten place, but only a shelf of what once was remained.
The arches and pillars of this place once glistened in weathered
Quaintness, but are now gilded with
Shadow and notched by the ravages of time.
The cloister stands as before,
Fined around its perimeter by stone rooms,
Each reverberating with memory and
Struggle, but the stone is now eroded and stained.
In each room, just as I recall, a wooden chest stands.
It was within these chests that I laid with
Affection the most static and sacred axioms of this world.
But the locks are now broken,
The keepsakes, scrolls and trinkets long gone.
Why must this be so?
Were our intentions not noble?
Why must these ancient tomes crumble before my eyes?"
The cloister's garden, shambling and alive with fertility,
In which I cut my teeth nurturing the
Frail plants and stalks, now wilts before me.
The soil dries and cracks,
Revealing glimpses of the great void
Beneath where the stalwart foundation once stood.
It is apparent now that the rock upon
Which I built this place was naught but smoke.
Mirage and illusion.
In time, the the columns and walls of this place,
The gardens and paving, the rooms and passages,
Will all slide away inexorably, and disappear beneath.
It is with tears in my eyes that I howl at the boiling sky, "
I refuse to leave this place!
I must never abandon it to the swirling
Maelstroms, lest I myself will cease to be!"
If I must move each and every stone of this place with my own hands,
Traverse across these shifting sands to find a true rock,
A true foundation, and rebuild this place from its bedrock,
Then I will do it, and nothing shall shake me from this path!"
And in my resolution, I return outward, to confront the freezing void.