This morn, I awake to stand on a glacier

When not even the sun itself has praised me;

With chilling pride my feet are bound, a stasis

At mercy to the columned giant of deepest blue

I see most high and lucid, afar from clouds below

And clench my sword with hands both steadfast;

Longingly, I gaze at the blistered heart of fear

Which has fed me with the food of thought,

While fear doth gaze coldly back at me.

In the prophecy of thought it is said,

To be weary is to be forever lost

For the silent shadow cannot dance with mice,

Just as the dew of each heralding day

Will never glisten for the black chariot

-

Yet here I am quiet, I am still, I am.

-

As a jagged frost star glides from the sky

To rest upon my hair in plait

It is not thrust aside as the others

On the furréd pelt that warms me,

For it is like my almond tears which fall

To this ethereal white wasteland

And arise triumphant as gentle embers

-

The thoughts of my solitude speak,

-

“Take your buttered knife

To spread thy daily bread,

And put away your gemstones

In hush! Do not lift it like the hammer

That must strike the anvil in self-same unison

To iron out your famine.”

-

This morn, as I stand upon a glacier

And stare deep into the heart of fear

The sword of my beholding can swing both ways;

It is not my debt of honour,

But my clarity, but my temperance,

Of crystal steel and integrity entwined.