The Spectral Ascent
A spectral form ascends the slopes, by grief and memory led.
Its feet, though void of mortal weight, imprint the snow’s embrace,
Each step a dirge, each breath a sigh that stirs the lifeless space.
The mountain, clad in robes of white, its crown of stars outspread,
Guards secrets veiled in icy shards and whispers of the dead.
Yet onward climbs this shadowed soul, through tempests sharp as knives,
To barter with the frozen gods for one it still revives.
O’er crevasses that yawn like jaws, where darkness drinks the light,
It treads the bridge of brittle frost, a pilgrim of the night.
The wind, a choir of keening ghosts, intones its mournful hymn,
As snowflakes weave a shroud of lace on edges gaunt and grim.
“Turn back,” the gale’s cold fingers plead, “no heart unbroken dwells
Where Time’s own pulse lies fettered fast in glacial citadels.
What fool would court the cliff’s disdain, the avalanche’s wrath,
To wake a dream long bound in ice, to walk Oblivion’s path?”
But still it climbs, its essence frail yet fierce as forge-born flame,
For in its core there glows a name no winter’s curse can maim.
A face blooms ‘mid the swirling mists—soft laughter, eyes of spring—
A love once cradled in its arms, now plucked by Fate’s cruel string.
“I hear thee,” sighs the wandering shade, “though leagues of night divide.
Thy voice, a lantern in the void, shall ever be my guide.
If chains of frost hold thee enthralled, I’ll rend them spire from spire,
Or perish, spent, upon these stones, to fan thy faintest fire.”
Through realms where sunlight dares not tread, where echoes freeze mid-air,
It scales the towers of despair, each crag a thorned prayer.
The peak, a spear of splintered glass, now pierces heaven’s veil,
And there, enshrined in crystal throes, it finds its holy grail:
A figure, still as carven stone, yet warm with stolen breath,
Entombed within a diamond womb that cheated mortal death.
Two hands, translucent as the dawn, press ‘gainst the prison’s wall,
Their touch a map of tenderness no void could yet appall.
“At last,” the specter weeps, “thy face, though veiled by frost’s design.
How long these centuries have gnawed, each dusk a thorned vine.
But fear no more the endless night, nor Time’s unyielding tide—
This heart, though phantom, yet retains the strength to breach thy bride.”
With fingers forged from longing’s fire, it carves the sacred ice,
Each stroke a symphony of pain, each shard a sacrificed slice.
The mountain groans, its ancient bones convulsed in wrathful throes,
Yet still the lover’s ghost persists, though darkness round it grows.
“Beware,” the ice, with crackling tongue, doth murmur as it splits,
“To wake the sleeper is to drain the life thy spirit knits.
What bond is worth such forfeiture, such barter with the grave?
Thy light extinguished, hers restored—is this the gift thou’st craved?”
No pause, no breath, no faltering—the wraith’s reply is writ
In every flake that parts the air, in every sparkle split.
“Let dawn reclaim her stolen hues, let shadows claim my due,
If but her lips may taste the wind, her eyes the morning’s blue.”
A final stroke—the crystal weeps, the captive form descends,
Cradled in arms that flicker now, as daylight’s mockery ends.
The sleeper stirs, her lashes frail as moth-wings brushed with dew,
While he who wrought the miracle feels night’s chill coursing through.
“Thou liv’st,” he breathes, a wisp of sound that melts upon her cheek.
“But thou—” she gasps, her fingers clasping vapors thin and weak.
“Nay, mourn me not,” the phantom smiles, though tears of starlight fall,
“For love is but a bridge betwixt the dream and world’s harsh thrall.
Go, walk the paths where blossoms dare to brave the thawing earth,
And know each petal’s whispered song is my rebirthing mirth.
When zephyrs kiss thy brow at dusk, ‘tis I who lifts thy hair;
When larks ascend on sapphire wings, my voice rides every air.
But linger not in sorrow’s vale, where ghosts their vigils keep—
I’ll light thy way with memories till thou, too, shalt sleep.”
His form, now frayed to threads of mist, dissolves in day’s first gleam,
While she, alive yet halved in soul, stares at the vacant seam.
The mountain keeps its counsel close, its vault of secrets sealed,
But legends tell of twilights where two shadows, faintly healed,
Drift hand in hand through alpine blooms, their whispers sweet and low—
A requiem for sacrifices only stars and snowflakes know.
And when the moon ascends her throne, her gaze, both kind and wise,
Beholds the truth no mortal heart dares utter lest it dies:
That love, though clothed in mortal dust, in dreams finds wings to soar,
And even Death’s cold fingertips may seal, but not outscore.
