The Sculptor’s Frozen Vow
Where jagged peaks pierce heaven’s vaulted shroud,
A lonesome soul, with frostbreathed hands, draws nigh
To carve his truth within the ice’s shroud.
No mortal name nor fame does he desire,
Yet marble’s ghost in snow commands his fire.
Here, years ago, when youth’s bold pulse ran warm,
He knelt beside a master, gaunt and wise,
Whose chisel sang through storms, defied the storm,
To shape the mountain’s tears to mortal eyes.
“Swear,” spoke the sage, “no flame but Art’s pure light
Shall guide thy hand through Sorrow’s starless night.”
The vow was etched in breath and blood that day—
A pact to chain his heart to Beauty’s throne.
But Time, the thief, stole mentor’s strength away,
And left the youth to climb the crags alone.
Now shadows dance where once the old man stood,
And whispers haunt the labyrinthine wood.
Through decades long, the sculptor’s blade has borne
The weight of winters vast, of springs denied.
His magnum opus—half a figure, torn—
Emerges slow from glacial sinews’ pride:
A woman’s form, her face a tempest’s song,
Her limbs a dirge to right a lifetime’s wrong.
“Why freeze her grace in this unfeeling tomb?”
A wanderer once cried, his voice a blade.
“The world below awaits thy genius’ bloom!”
The artist turned, his eyes like ash betrayed:
“She breathes not for their praise, nor gold, nor strife—
But for the oath that binds my soul to life.”
Yet silent winds conspire, and fate’s cold hand
Unspools the threads no mortal vow can mend.
One eve, as dusk bled light across the land,
A fissure split the ice where hope did bend.
The sculptor’s cry, a raven’s bleak refrain,
Echoed through valleys drowned in endless pain.
“Old friend,” a spectral voice cut through the gale
(The ghostly mentor, draped in misted gray),
“Thy hands have shaped what mortal hearts must fail—
But Death demands the debt no art can stay.
Release thy chisel; let the mountain claim
The dream that burns too bright to bear a name.”
“No!” roared the wretch, his tool a lightning flash,
“I’ll rend the earth or heaven ere I yield!
Her eyes—they weep though carved of frost and ash—
Shall wake to see my triumph sealed, revealed!”
One desperate strike—the ice, with thunder’s groan,
Engulfed the man, the masterpiece, the stone.
Now pilgrims brave the heights, though few return,
To glimpse the tale the blizzards dare not tell:
Two frozen forms in death’s embrace discerned—
His arms still locked around her crumbling shell.
The mountain keeps its secret, cold and just:
All oaths, like snow, must melt to mortal dust.
