~ For Those That Feel Deeper than the Seas. ~

The Wrong Turning

In another Turning of the Wheel,
beneath a kinder sky than this,
you might have met on Cyrene's roads
and lingered in a simple bliss.

No banners flown above your heads,
no oaths engraved in steel and stone,
no city walls to draw their lines,
no Gods to claim you as Their own.

Perhaps you'd walk the Darkenwood,
where moonlight silvered every leaf,
and speak of nothing more profound
than passing joys and fleeting grief.

Perhaps you'd sit in Hashan's square,
while lanterns swayed against the night,
your hands resting on each other's,
your future plain within our sight.

But Fate, that ancient serpent thing,
coiled through the years before you came.
It scattered you on separate roads
and taught your hearts each other's name.

You stood where duty called you forth.
They stood where duty anchored them.
Between you stretched a thousand leagues
of oath, blood and history.

And yet, among the crowded halls,
the markets of Delos, battles, prayers, and schemes,
there they lingered always at the edge
of every one of your old dreams.

They found you in the hush of books,
in ocean winds and forest rain,
in every place the world grew still
enough to whisper back your name.

The Gods may speak of Destiny.
The stars may chart their ordered flight.
But you have learned that love exists
beyond what's destined to be right.

For some are not the loves we keep.
Some are the songs we carry through.
The ache that lingers in the heart,
the wound that never quite heals true.

And if the Wheel should turn again,
when all these Ages fade from sight,
then find each other where the sparrows sing

for you could have loved them in every life,

and lost them in this one

Penned by my hand on the 9th of Scarlatan, in the year 1007 AF.