Echo of the Mage

By Cliff Lake

 

Echo of the Mage

 

Long ago, when day was new,

To hide beneath a darker hue,

The skies a warlock made to mar,

To sully Moon and erase star.

 

This thaumaturge felt life hexed,

So he scoured ancient text,

And learned of paths perilous, bizarre,

In the Whisper Mountains, where the secrets are.

 

A rash experiment had burned,

He’d scarred himself, he was now spurned,

Or offered pitied sympathy,

But never constant company.

 

Long he had been cast aside,

Something within him had died,

He learned an evil repertoire,

To make light a dimming memoir.

 

He removed himself from common crowd,

To seek the means to cast the shroud,

Through many lands he wandered far,

To the Whisper Mountains, where the secrets are.

 

Ascended him to dizzy height,

Closer to the source of light,

To hidden cave most dank and dim,

And cursed the sun and plunged within.

 

Searched he long and searched he deep,

For the mysteries those caverns keep,

Until at last to runes he came,

And found within them spelled his name.

 

A tale of woe and despair read,

And within him growing dread,

Fear reached out from ancient lore:

All of this had gone before.

 

Before him his tale plainly writ,

Only this the gods permit:

Unless he learned from his journey,

He was doomed thus, and endlessly.

 

If he still treks, I cannot say,

Though sun still shines throughout our day,

Yet sometimes heard is mourning far,

In the Whisper Mountains, where the secrets are.

 

Cliff Lake 12/29/2023

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2023

Location: Dalton, MA, USA

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