In the stillness,
in the cavernous dark before light's first dawn,
will and breath struck fire against void,
forging twin circlets:
one of winds, veined with stormfire,
one of waves, swollen with hunger,
metals radiant with the heat of creation.

The crowns settled easy upon mirrored brows.
One lifted His gaze into heights unmeasured,
seeking the endless vault;
the Other bent low to the womb of waters,
cradling depths in His hands.
Their breath tangled,
feather and scale, wing and fin,
new life stirred from silence
rising to sing the world awake.

But the crown of foam grew restless.
It pressed against sand and rock,
split cliffs, broke harbours,
burst over shorelines
and filled the deep with spawn unnumbered.
The plenty soured;
its keeper thickened with excess,
then hollowed,
a tide decreed to ebb away.

The Heir rose up, bright as morning spray,
baptized Himself in blood and salt.
The crown slipped heavy,
sank upon a gilded brow
raised to want for nothing,
yet bound to thirst unending.
A spirit born unsatisfied,
gorged and never filled.

Now the waters glut themselves on wings.
Feathers drift like soot on breakers,
charred bones scattered,
to rage and claw at heaven's heart.

The Heir gnaws at the land entire,
stretching His hunger over soil and stone,
yet always His eyes climb upward.
There the other crown still burns,
there His Father's face still lingers,
untouchable,
unbreakable,
a vastness too great to swallow.


Penned by my hand on the 13th of Daedalan, in the year 986 AF.