The Snowbound Oath
Where winter’s breath enshrouds the silent peak,
An ancient figure treads through spectral snow,
His heart enwrapped in sorrows none may speak.
The mountain, cloaked in time’s unyielding guise,
Recalls the fervor of his youth’s bright flame—
When vows were sworn beneath these brooding skies,
And love, once fierce, now whispers but a name.
“O glacial heights, whose bones no springtime thaws,
Bear witness to the pledge we sealed in vain!
Her laughter danced where now the tempest gnaws,
A rose of June devoured by frost’s disdain.”
His gnarled hand grips a locket, cold and worn,
Where painted eyes still weep in hues of dusk.
The winds, like phantoms of a promise torn,
Repeat the oath he trembles to discuss:
*”Let not the years, though countless as the snow,
Nor fate’s cruel blade, which parts the tenderest thread,
Unknit the bond our bleeding palms did sow—
Till death’s embrace claims one, let both be wed.”*
But seasons turned, as seasons ever must;
The mountain kept its vigil, stark and grim.
Her footfall fled where ice conspired with dust,
And left but echoes mourning after him.
Three decades past, a missive, frail and frayed,
Had reached his hands, its ink dissolved to shade:
*”The cliffs reclaim what love could not persuade—
Seek not the face for which your soul has prayed.”*
Yet here he climbs, where jagged shadows leer,
To kneel before the ledge she called her bower.
The storm, a chorus, chants what he must hear—
The truth that gnaws with every borrowed hour.
“Forgive,” he breathes, “this trespass of the heart,
Which dares to tread where silent bans decree.
If vows must break, let mine assume the part—
Condemn the flesh, but spare her memory.”
A gust replies, her voice in every sigh:
*”What oath endures when breath to ice is borne?
The stars, not stone, hold covenants on high—
You are the ghost that haunts the hollow morn.”*
He looses now the locket to the void,
A gleam of gold devoured by the deep.
The cliffs, once split by passion’s fevered tide,
Now cradle him in everlasting sleep.
No chronicle shall etch this bleak repose,
No dirge resound where avalanches roar.
The mountain, guardian of all it knows,
Seals lips of rock—and mourns what went before.
Yet sometimes, wanderers who brave the heights
Claim shadows dance where moonlight barely treads—
Two forms, entwined like vines of northern lights,
Whose whispers melt the snow where tears were shed.
But skeptics smile, for reason will not bow
To tales of spirits bound by shattered vows.
The locket sleeps where none may find it now,
And time, the truest traitor, laughs aloud.
