David Policar 1996.
Numb and wandering, feeling nothing, dreaming
Tortured dreams of chasms' mouths and falling,
In circles over icy mountains crawling,
Limbs pale, shrouded with ice, blue-white and gleaming...
I'd be there still, with drifts of snow to hide me,
But for the notice of a wandering stranger
Who called to me and led me out from danger,
And pointed out a distant light to guide me.
We walked a while as winter's grip grew colder,
I faint of heart and petulant, he weakened
And grown too ill to lead me unassisted,
We stumbled forward on each other's shoulders.
For years we journeyed thus, through snow and sleet,
Seeking a distant light through paths unknown,
Which his eyes saw more clearly than my own,
Which I tripped over with imperfect feet.
By now, that path is clearer. I can tread it,
If not with ease, at least without disaster,
To reach my beacon. Here, a woman; past her,
A fire, and the scraps that fed it.
No stranger she, this keeper of the flame --
We walked the path I walk now once, together,
In a time of clearer paths and fairer weather.
She fears my touch, I fear to call her name.
And now she fears the fire she once was tending.
I watch it as it dies to embers, glowing.
Around us all is ice; the wind is blowing,
The path we're on is one that has no ending.
I feel new doubt. That guiding light, the beacon
That led me through the tempest, stands before me,
But she who spent the winter months beside it
Fares just as ill as I, who walked unsheltered.
There is no end in sight, no destination.
Just this: A wind that sings eternal winter,
A lover, cold and frightened, in the shadows,
A dying flame that might have kept her warm.
My once-guide smiles, and all at once I know him,
Through memories long-lost of other journeys.
Through him I see myself, numb, lost, and frozen,
And circling a flame I held, unknowing.
I've journeyed, seeking what I carried hidden,
It led to me a long-lost friend and traveller,
And seeking it so long, I found another,
Was guided to her side, as he to mine.
All threads are in my hands, now, yet no pattern.
Is there a force that guides unwary travellers
And brings them safe together, or just events
That tease and lead astray and have no meaning?
I cannot know. Meanwhile, the wind is blowing,
The fire dies, the ice laughs with delight.
I have to choose: to walk into the night
Seeking new beacons, or to stay, unknowing.
I cannot know. I sit beside her fire,
Light it with mine and wish it into life.
He adds his flame; the three of us grow warmer,
And start to build a hearth, distant no longer.