I did not know how near the dark
would draw my city's quiet stones, nor how
the gloaming there would bend and bloom
with breath not ours, but pressing close -
how smoke would curl along the walls
and seek its warmth in failing light.

There are too many whispered things
that gather in the half-seen hours - this
murmur of planes that lean and long
to touch, to bruise the fragile seam
between what is and what may be -
and all our hearts beat out the same

uneasy measure. What if all
should split and spill? What if our court
so mighty, carved from patient night,
should find its pillars turned to ash?
What if the words we dare not speak
are truer than our waking will?

So we devise our anchors out
of formless thought and trembling hope,
we cast our threads through sable air
and bind the dark with careful hands -
a tapestry of dread and faith
drawn tight against a splitting sky.

The universe seems held in pause,
entwined by fibres broad and gold.
Each pulse resounds like drowning bells,
each breath a spark against the throat -
who shall we be if swallowed whole,
if night rewrites us in its ink?

Yet still belief, like guttering flame,
persists in corners left behind.
The darkness creeps, but so do stars
that prick the vault with stubborn fire.
Our fractured hopes stand on the brink
and will not loosen up their hold.

For near as thought the realm now stands,
a pressure just behind the tongue -
and in this narrow span between
our fear and what we name as faith,
we stitch our courage, beat by beat,
until the edge of dusk draws thin.

This is the truth the dark reveals -
that even swallowed things endure.
As swallower leans close to claim,
these hands shall build its hallowed room.
Through all that threatens to consume,
the seeds and roots always remain.

Penned by my hand on the 11th of Lupar, in the year 998 AF.