The Desert Edge (Part One)

The desert edge lies on the fringe of three worlds And under this one sun I sit alone with one crow for company Behind my worn down shack of lack lustre dreams Rises to the horizon a jungle of Heaven’s Gate a lush and verdant wonder To the right hand of my chair thunders the Blue Divide Chill blue seas like the unrelenting hammer of a Dwarven God It beats the rocks beneath the cliff with a lulling weary rhythm That echo of the searing fire baking the earth on the left of my smile Where the rocks steam in pain and crack beneath the weight they carry Where the sands burn like coal in that desert forge I tilted my head to the bright blue sky with its rising pastel hues Listening to the murmurs across my back of Heaven’s Gate and her leaves Sighing of the Blue Divide with her sweet breath rolling in with her thunder Feeling the wafting of warmth billow over me from the desert forge I sat as I have from the death of my youth to this the twilight of my days It was a hot and sundering day, chill like no other before it thought my friend the crow And he was right for it was a day of change, a day of foreshadows deep On came a wanderer from lands that I have not travelled only visited Bringing with him memories of the trails I have wrought through my own life In brief glimpses I did sojourn into the emerald vault of Heaven’s Gate Barely through the vines that choke the border of that world I strove in my search And there beyond the wall I fell upon a path of soft grass damp with life But I was not alone under the shadowy sunlight filtering down through the leaves I could hear them moving all around me in the gloomy depths of the jungle What they were I never knew, never caught sight of them completely I only heard in horrified rapture their howling, their cackling echoes in the trees They knew I was there though I could not see them they knew I was there A stranger in their world, perhaps they thought me an invader, an interloper So it was they chased me with screams and wailing cries like a thousand jackals Ran me down biting the shadow of my heels as I ran blindly back, back, back to the edge Stumbling I found myself broken down having past beyond the great barrier of vines Those silent and vigilant protectors holding within their grasp a promise