Dark and forbidding this landscape.
Barren, sorrowful, grays and shades of black.

Shrubs and withered trees, soil devoid.
You stand-alone on this plateau.

No companionship, no neighbors, no movement.
Above, clouds in confrontation and turmoil,
colliding and casting jagged inky bolts.

Mindless descent, rushing invitation, vortex swirls draining your Will.
Plague of cowardice, bitter curdling screams of desperation and despair.

Escaping only, as eternal, internal, muted moans of a Soul,
running in rivulets of molten fear and self-pity.

Will and Soul, conjoined and rendered nil.
Fleeing tendrils have caressed a miniscule mote of antiquity.

Antiquity, lain dormant, slumbering somnolent, shivers of glimmerings presage the opening portal.
Lids of doubt lead to a gateway of understanding.
Magnificent, untamed, ferocious, upheaval brings the Beast.

Rearing, savaging, ravaging with unsheathed and unbounded glory in its prowess.
Ripping, slashing, snarling at the veil of darkness.

Merciless in pursuit, merciless in its frenzied feast of the fabric of desolation.
Exposed now is the haven of the heart.
Beauty, love and life re-inherited.

Satiated,
the Beast moves in fluid motion
with graceful dominant pleasure to its lair and chain.

Chains sought,
as Will and Soul and Spirit are rejoined in the triad,
reconfirming your humanity, through the Beast.

~~~end~~~