Once the traveler slept under the stars

that existed to adorn the velvet night,

the land began to grip him.

He glanced but once upon the mountains

at the break of dawn, and was lost.

---

they creep up on the traveler in the morning

the mist cloaks jagged peaks, as blue and purple as the dawn,

they are but shadows until he realizes that he is surrounded

by breathless illusions at daybreak,

until the wind comes and gives them a voice to sing with.

---

his curiosity gripped him, and he left all worldly cares

to roam the ancient mountain-lands

and to marvel at the stars at nighttime.

---

the flower-bulbs in bloom sang to him lullabies

as they closed under the stars at night

that adorned their charmingly drooping buds—

diamonds on a woman’s gown.

---

What lies beyond the embowered river-bends

where branches split the joyous streams?

The deeps past the shadows magnolias cast haunted him

cool, dark, flowering, sensuous,

as the brook drifted on to seek the places that he could not.

He followed them as far as he could go—

and stood, waving and laughing, to wish it farewell,

the jostling stream,

as it leapt over stones in its way.

---

He knew heaven itself could be no more beautiful,

but still he scaled to the jagged peaks

and into the sky to meet the sun.

---

his world was growing behind him—

the thought came upon him once, hesitant, uneasy,

but he sat gazing at the stars over the mountaintops,

and could not bring himself to ask for more.

---

Before he saw dawn transform the fairy illusion

into the massive fortification of mountains in the day,

the shadow shattered into a thousand bits of flying rock

as an explosion rent the clear, pure air,

jarring the mountain’s song.

---

The men who mined for progress killed something that day

which never again returned to him.

He wandered aimless for weeks,

touching the petals as he passed them,

sadly, regretfully, as if bidding them goodbye.

---

one night by the camp-fire

he whispered softly that maybe,

maybe the stars did not exist to adorn

but instead to gaze in reverence, sleepless, deathless,

at the ever-changing wilderness below,

and in gazing, adorned.

---

the wind stole the words he whispered,

and sang them back to the mountains,

who responded somberly, accordingly.

---

He fell asleep looking upwards,

with his arm stretched over his head—

a gesture of eternity.

For the first time he did not look upon the dawn.

---

A new star shone the next night.

the miners looked jealously through their smoke

at the richness spread above them—

and at the single silent star that, in gazing, adorned.

---