The Scribe of Eternal Sands
Where Time’s own breath dissolves to phantom haze,
A youth, whose quill once danced with verses bright,
Now treads the wastes—a bard bereft of light.
His name, a whisper lost to winds austere,
His soul, a lyre strung with grief and fear.
The desert sprawls, a parchment vast and bare,
Its dunes like letters etched in endless prayer.
O cursed scribe! What folly bade thee chase
The specters of a past no hand can trace?
Thy heart, a vault of memories enshrined,
Seeks refuge in the labyrinths of mind.
Yet here, where suns conspire to bleach the bone,
No shadow falls save Time’s relentless throne.
Each grain of sand, a second’s brittle shard,
Each step, a dirge for futures long discards.
He recalls her—the muse whose laughter rang
Through verdant vales where spring’s first anthems sang.
Her eyes, twin pools where starlight dared to drown,
Now haunt his dreams like suns condemned to frown.
“Liora,” sighs the wind, a ghostly plea,
But echoes mock his futile elegy.
Her face, once carved in twilight’s tender glaze,
Is but a mirage born of fevered gaze.
Three moons have waxed since last he glimpsed the tree
Whose roots drank deep from Lethe’s murky sea.
Its branches, thick with fruit of sweet deceit,
Promised oblivion to souls discrete.
“Pluck but one,” it hissed, “and memories fade,
The heart’s raw wounds shall scar, the storms be stayed.”
Yet he, in pride, with trembling hand withdrew,
And chose the path of fire—to stay untrue.
Now, scorched by truth, he staggers through the void,
His voice a rasp, his spirit paranoid.
The desert’s tongue, a serpent sleek and wise,
Unspools its riddles beneath ashen skies:
“What chain binds faster than the iron’s kiss?
What prison holds when bars dissolve to mist?”
He answers not, but feels the answer rise—
The past’s cold grip, which none can exorcise.
At dusk, the dunes exhale a mournful hymn,
Their golden crests like pyres burning dim.
A shadow stirs—not beast, nor man, nor wraith,
But Time’s own envoy, robed in dust and faith.
“Turn back,” it croons, “thy quest is but a snare,
For yesterday’s wine spills to empty air.
Each footprint here, a tomb for hope’s frail spark—
The past is always night; the future, dark.”
Yet still he walks, though reason screams retreat,
His pulse a drum to march toward defeat.
The stars, once guides, now leer like gods amused,
Their ancient light by mortal pain bemused.
He stumbles, falls, and claws the yielding ground,
His fingers tracing symbols without sound.
The sand, alive, consumes each desperate mark,
As night devours the lark’s last dying arc.
In visions, Liora kneels beside his form,
Her touch a balm, her voice the calm from storm.
“Why cling,” she mourns, “to ashes long grown cold?
Our tale was writ in ink that time erodes.”
He weeps, but tears are swallowed by the waste,
Their salt a feast for winds with barren taste.
“I sought,” he gasps, “to mend what fate undid—”
She fades, a sigh: “Poor poet… Truth forbids.”
Dawn breaks—a blade of gold that splits the plain,
Revealing bones of those who chased this bane.
Their skulls, half-buried, grin in grim accord,
Their tales untold, their epitaphs ignored.
The poet grips his quill, its nib long dry,
And carves a final verse beneath the sky:
“Here lies a fool who loved what ghosts retain—
The past’s sweet venom coursing through his veins.”
The desert drinks his words, his breath, his name,
And grinds his heart to dust devoid of blame.
No dirge resounds, no stone shall mark his sleep,
Only the wind, which secrets vows to keep.
Yet sometimes, when the moon bleeds pallid gold,
A shadow writes in sand—a tale retold—
Of freedom sought in chains of yesteryear,
And truths that drown in echoes… never clear.
“`
