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Snowdust
By C.S. Thompson
Copyright 2008
All Rights Reserved
1
Hot ashes sizzle on the rocks and snow
While high above me, hunting falcons glide.
A single strand of grayish smoke still curls
Like twisting rope against a huge, white sky
So cold it shocks the last thin threads of dream
And leaves me clean and startled and awake.
The foothills stretch behind me, nearly bare,
But pocked with lonely, black-white scrubs and birch,
And broken here and there by boulders too
Like naked hands that grasp the empty skies.
I pour a stream of steaming water out,
And orange coals go black with veins of fire,
Then fade to gray. I heft my leather pack,
Which holds a bare few odds and ends, and stand.
This land is haunted by a howling wind,
That whistles like a steam train through the hills
Then blasts across the white and empty plains
And drives a cloud of snowdust, thin and dry
And glittering like shards of ground-up glass
Through barren branches. Though the road is long,
There's nothing to be gained by staying here.
No destination calls me, but the need
To seek the will of Logos and to hear
The words and warnings of the winter wind
And learn a new myth from the nameless gods.
The bards of Earth have drained the old wells dry
In singing odes to nymphs they never knew
Except through pages in a well-worn book,
And I would drink the clear, cold wine of dream
Directly from the source, and know its tang
As well as any ancient poet knew
The flavor of the dawn songs of the world.
2
Real myth is not a thing you go to learn
In books of lore like dried-out yellow bones.
It's not a thing that you can get in school
By sitting at the feet of wise old men,
Though yellowed pages and old masters both
Are worthy of all praise. Real myth is awe.
Real myth is power like a stream of flame
That scorches bones and burns out all the masks
You'd rather wear and turns them into ash,
And leaves you shaking on the street, alone.
It's truth made manifest in such a form
That only lies can tell it. Myth is Law,
Transformed by poetry. The Word made flesh.
Real myth is when you drink the thoughts of God,
And slip the bonds of time and space, and dance.
It's also when you chase the withered charms
Of succubi and hungry, wrathful shades
Until they've drained you dry as any gourd.
And all the lying dreams of worldly lore-
External alchemy, the wizard's stone
And necromancy's circle- all these things,
Though worthless in themselves, once wore the shape
And bore the name of myth, before their fall.
Real myth is something glimpsed, but never seen
Quite clearly, on the ridge of that next hill.
And so, because I've glimpsed it, I must go
And walk the byways of this magic land
Until I've learned to sing the winter wind
And heard a new truth from the nameless gods.
3
The path ahead is packed, hard, crusted snow
Through which a single, withered clump of grass
Pokes up its pale green head. The air seems clean
And charged with life like static, and I breathe
A lung full as my feet break through the ice
To sink into the snow beneath. Ahead,
A single, black-clad figure has appeared,
With long cloak flapping in the whistling wind,
His heavy staff held lightly in one hand.
He seems to flicker, almost fade to white,
Then reappear, much closer. So I stop,
My hand against my weapon just in case,
To wait for his arrival with the calm
And stoic discipline for which I've trained.
"Hail, stranger, and well met!" I call. He grins,
Revealing such a row of sharpened teeth
I almost think a wendigo has come
Behind the howling of the winter storm
To hunt my flesh. "Well met?" he says, "In truth,
We've scarcely met at all. But since you've come,
A refugee from some far, lesser world
Beyond the mountains, I must have your name."
The laws of courtesy are hard and clear,
Containing little room for compromise,
In such a world as this. I shake my head,
And take one small step backward to prepare.
"I'll gladly give my name," I say. "But first,
Good stranger, give me yours. For you would gain
Some clear, unkind advantage should I yield
And give my name before you've spoken yours."
"By all the devils of the deepest pit,
And all unhallowed souls!" he says, "Your name-
Or one of us must fall here by the way
And leave a meal for hawks and hungry dogs."
I draw my blade without another word-
The time for talking and the time for steel
Must never be confused. So let it be.
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