The Reading

 

The Reading

 

The solemn company rides,

The distance between villages,

Grows greater with every passing year,

Though none can say why.

They carry the records,

The great tome,

Though only one among them,

Has the skill to discern its meaning,

For though highly esteemed,

What use have hunters and herdsmen,

For that arcane art?

Still, some with the aptitude are found,

Fostered,

For some writings are survived,

And new ones made,

If slowly, and only by a few.

The scribe among them,

Is closely guarded,

His letters young yet,

And his sword but newly held.

Tomorrow marks his first Reading,

And he practices from his slate,

Scratching the marks over and again,

The low murmur of his art their only sound,

For their beasts feet are muffled.

They dare not announce their presence,

As the Sheriffs are busy elsewhere,

And bandits have been reported near to here.

But they will dare this passage,

Though dark has descended on the world,

And the Great Cities were long ago fallen,

And things have grown wild again.

The Time of Man has passed,

And the learned among them call that good,

For the old volumes tell of dangers unspeakable,

And of horrors Man had done to Men,

And to the lands and the waters,

And these must not be done again.

So, this company rides to a Reading,

This young one’s first,

So that some things are not forgotten,

And some things are not borne again,

That this world may survive Man,

And his stupidity.

The solemn company rides.

A fallen City glows sickly over the horizon.

They do not go that way.

They will not go that way again.

 

Cliff Lake 4/25/2024

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2024