The Orphan’s Lament: A Solitary Ascent

His breath, a spectral veil, dissolves in air,
As memories of kinder days grow dim—
A mother’s voice, a father’s fleeting hymn,
Now buried deep where ice and silence pair.

The village far below, a dying spark,
Its chimneys choked with sorrow’s ashen hue,
Had cast him forth, a wretch with naught to do
But seek the truth that clawed his soul like bark.

“Beyond the peaks,” they murmured, “lies the key
To bind the wounds no mortal hand may close.”
Yet now, alone, he faces spectral snows,
And feels the mountain’s cold anathema.

Three nights he climbed, his fingers raw with cold,
Three days he fought the gale’s unyielding song,
Each step a dirge, each gasp a plea to prolong
The fleeting warmth that youth once dared to hold.

But on the fourth morn, as the blizzard waned,
A figure emerged from the swirling gray—
A youth, like him, with eyes of storm-tossed spray,
Whose smile could make the harshest winters feign.

“What madness drives thee, brother, to this height?”
The stranger asked, his voice a lute’s soft cry.
“The truth,” he gasped, “or death—whichever nigh
Shall grant me peace from this unending night.”

They trekked as one, two shadows bound by frost,
Their laughter brief, a spark in endless dark,
Till fate, capricious, aimed her cruelest mark:
A fissure yawned where solid ice seemed crossed.

The stranger slipped, a leaf in autumn’s gust,
His fingers clutching at the orphan’s wrist.
“Release me, friend! The abyss insists its tryst—
Let not my fall betray thy sacred trust!”

But tighter still the orphan held his friend,
His tears like diamonds hardening in air,
Until the ice, too weak to bear the pair,
Condemned them both to meet the same bleak end.

Yet as they fell, the stranger, selfless, threw
His weight against the cliff’s unyielding spine,
And with a thrust, he launched the orphan’s line
Back to the ledge, while he to darkness flew.

“Forgive me!” echoed through the granite halls,
A requiem swallowed by the ravine’s maw.
The orphan knelt, his soul gnawed raw by awe,
And wept for he who answered death’s cold calls.

Now truly lone, he pressed toward the crest,
Where jagged crowns of ice pierced heaven’s veil,
Each gust a ghostly chorus to regale
The martyrs bound to this unchanging waste.

Visions arose—his mother’s phantom face,
Her hands outstretched, yet always out of reach;
His father’s shadow, murmuring in speech
That melted ere it left the dream’s embrace.

“Why have you left me here to starve, to freeze?”
He cried, but shadows offered no reply,
Only the wind’s bleak, unrelenting sigh
And snowflakes dancing like forgotten pleas.

At last, the summit—bare, austere, and pale—
A throne of glass where no soul dared to reign.
There, nestled in the heart of endless plain,
A wooden box, time’s prisoner, frail and stale.

With trembling hands, he pried the rusted lock,
And found within, not gold, nor scripture’s grace,
But letters, browned by years, that laid to trace
The final chapter of his parents’ woe.

“To thee, our son, whom fate forbade us keep,”
The script began, each word a dagger’s twist,
“We sought to shield thee from the war’s grim fist,
Yet death, relentless, reaps what love would reap.

The plague that claimed our bones could not destroy
This proof: we loved thee past the grave’s divide.
But secrets buried here must not be pried—
Some truths are but the architects of joy.”

He read, and read again, till letters blurred,
The snow around him stained with hot despair.
What truth could justify this endless snare?
What justice in a voice no longer heard?

The sun dipped low, a smoldering ember’s glow,
As night’s chill fingers tightened round his throat.
He clutched the letters to his threadbare coat,
And felt the final flames of resolve go.

“O mountain, take this offering of pain,”
He whispered, as the stars blinked cold assent.
“Let frost and time conspire to cement
My bones where neither love nor loss may reign.”

And there, beneath the cosmos’ hollow gaze,
The orphan slept, his quest both won and lost.
The dawn returned to find his form enbossed
In ice—a sculpture veiled in sorrow’s glaze.

Now travelers who brave those spectral heights
Report a dirge that haunts the wind’s lament,
A boy’s faint voice, forever discontent,
And shadows dancing in the northern lights.

Thus ends the tale of one who sought to find
The truths that chain the human heart to dust.
In solitude, we wither, freeze, or rust—
For love, not knowledge, heals the mortal mind.