Zephyr

Zephyr

Under the moon’s eye, beneath the glimmer of starlight.
Two factions of sentinels, one skeletal and black,
The other, ever green and frozen,
Watch, wait.
At last it comes, sweeping down glen and over dale.
The zephyr.
Its voice a herald, blowing on a horn.
The sentinels stir,
Boughs shift, snow scatters.
Then it strikes.
Strong, true, deep.
A bellow, a creaking.
A snap, a crash.
A hold is breaking.

Fissures and fractals trace,
Across the face of a flow locked in time.
Glacial blue, eerie green, clouded white.
It burns in the moonlit night.
Layer upon layer, bound tight.
Down the mountain, to the glen,
With its crystal waters, it once flew.
Now the deep of winter, held it fast and true.
The zephyr, herald the call.

An owl’s mournful cry.
The chittering of a jay.
A creaking, a pop.
A trickle, a drop.
Groaning, moaning,
Something skitters, something falls.
Creaking, cracking.
Patter, pound.
Thunder roars among the clouds.
Zephyr, blow.

Moonlight fades, the stars swallowed.
Sentinels, both green and black,
Quake and quiver.
Sheets of snow, dense and white.
Thrown off, out of sight.
Grit and grave, loam and moss,
Breach the blanket that has been shed.

Icicles trailing, long and thin.
Melting, gleaming in the night.
Thunder cracks, a sudden light.
Mist rolls, the ocean roars.
High above the clouds it soars.
The zephyr.

Shifting, shaping.
Forging out, fighting free.
A downward spiral.
A storm breaking.
The clouds rupture.
Dropping a burden.

Rain plummets, an endless torrent.
Grit and gravel, soil and loam.
Moss, pebbles, lichens
The last of fall’s decayed glory,
Comes streaming down the hillside.
Ever onward, tumbling down,
Pressing the heels of the zephyr.

Lightening sparks, thunder bellows.
The zephyr shifts, twists,
Gaining power, gathering speed.
It chases the lightening arching across the sky.
The bolt strikes hard, deep, and true.
A cannon’s shot splits the night.
Creaked and fragile,
Hanging by a thread.
The ice flow can hold no more.
Thus is the power of the zephyr and the lightening it called down.

The flow is fractured, torn apart.
The river’s water, glacial and green,
Form a torrent, swift and clean.
The rain continues.
Feeding it, making it grow.
Ever onward to the ocean’s tide it will go.
Following the zephyr.

Winter’s hold is broken,
Bough and stem and stone.
Warmed by the zephyr,
A legend that is spoken in the bone.