Winter Madness
And so the winter comes to pass,
When the mind of wisdom cowers beneath a frozen wing.
Jasmine is not so raucous,
For the cold in her bones is numbed by the pang in her belly.
Her kingly man is in disgrace,
But he cannot call to his chancely maid,
For she is tied to her brood with strings of blood.
And what of our quest?
Well, I remained, but not alone,
For in the seaward lands I found a prince.
He led me through the frost and ice,
To passages of lime green snow,
And when I asked for why,
He said the answer in the heavens lies.
But that is not our purpose,
For in the wastes there lived a snail,
Whose shell afforded us a home,
Whilst through the desert of the night we roamed.
And hours passed without a note,
For even birds of rain did hide,
Whilst the storms reached out to us with hands of death.
Then to the pit our journey came,
Where a penguin pottered for some food,
Wary not of our intrusion to the calm.
We sat and watched the fisherman,
And begged to forage through his trawl,
For jewels of ice the prince he said we sought.
Then as we gathered from the sea,
Those priceless gems of little time,
The penguin grew impatient of our task.
He snapped and stomped, our prince to chide,
And I declared we had suffice,
So the prince he plucked a final star of blue.
The snail seemed a touch perturbed,
For in his shell the jewels rested,
But life could never be the same for them.
And as we journeyed to the south,
Away from winter, for our homes to find,
The prince he bade to look once more upon our prize.
You will have guessed, my faithful friends,
That he must have seen the cuckoo of the sage.
For the jewels had all but fled,
And in their place they left a pool of clear blood,
But nothing of the splendour of their ilk.
So as our lives did once more part,
I pondered upon my seasons of madness,
And there were only two that did remain,
But surely not for me this time,
For I can see the lessons there within.
I hear you laugh, and Jasmine too,
And when this quest does come once more,
Then I may laugh as well for one more night.
And in the morning, when I wake,
My head, that should be clear, will be afflicted.
The wanderlust will take control,
And off once more to distant lands,
Will travel my companions and I.
But though you think that I am weak,
I have the fables that you crave,
And who besides can offer madness as a prize?
Not you, for you will rest alone,
Whilst I will seek the truth and more,
And my experiences will last forever.