When the day is over, the moon hanging

Suspended in a cradle of stars high above

These small lodgings, my thoughts often

Wander to places far from where I lay to

Foreign lands in times now lost, long ago

When’s of cobblestone roads choked in

Ethereal mists that come as spirits from

Rolling, empty fields.

Behind closed eyes I see these places as

A traveler who may once have walked

There, oblivious to the shadows that move

In the lamplight like sudden dancers waltzing

Across my old wooden floor, my mind dances

A different jig of well-worn boots walking on

Cobblestone, a twisted staff in one pale hand

As I go about my way.

The morning is cool as I walk, and I pause

To raise the hood of the cloak I wear, paying

No mind to the sounds of small creatures that

See fit to scold me from where they hide in

The mist-covered timothy and clover of those

Endless late November fields, paying no mind

To the smell of fast approaching rain, a smell

Like ozone mixed with a dash of childhood.

My face now hidden in the folds of shadow

That surrounds the hood, I lean the staff against

One arm and tighten it with frayed rawhide

Lacings, nodding with silent satisfaction as I

Take up my staff once again, the sky turns

Dark above me, and not-so distant thunder

Mutters to itself like an angry old man who

Has lost his money pouch.

The flat sounds that I make as I continue on

My journey, boot heels and staff, suddenly gives

Way as the cobblestone comes to an abrupt end

To be replaced by nothing more than old wagon ruts

Almost lost beneath tall grasses and years of not being

Used, and as I stand considering this, I feel a single drop

Of rain strike the top of my hood, quickly followed by

Several more in that long ago when.

Soon it is pouring rain, that strange mist churning in

The freshening wind like a liquid, a somehow still moving

Frozen sea, and I laugh at the thought of it, thunder roaring

Its own approval from the sky above me as I move forward

Against my staff, eyes clenched tight as I fight the wind, a

Lone traveler in a land from times now lost, a long ago place

That none have ever walked, save myself, my only witness the

Moon that hangs high above me in a cradle of stars.

END

“Traveler”