A dragon trapped me in the walls
Of fortress worlds away
My hope: one day a knight would come,
Bring me from dark to day

I took a candle, every night
And with a falt’ring tread
I set its tiny flame upon
The sill close by my bed

One day, I said, someone will see
My silent, wretched cry
My plea to search within my walls
To grab my hand and fly

But unlike that which Psyche saw
My candle showed no face
Just blackness, not a star above,
A plane of empty space

The sun has withdrawn its last warm rays,
leaving the earth to cool itself in the dark.
The ground relinquishes the warmth of the burning days,
as the air chills in the indigo dark.

A breath of wind ruffles my hair in passing,
pressing into my skin soft fingers of cold.
Greedily it snatches the warmth of my breathing,
giving in return a lungful of cold.

The silence seems to numb my cold ears,
no one else has ventured into the night.
I haven’t felt this alive in years,
Breathing and walking in the dark cold night.

Sunlight dapples the ground, sifted to the forest floor by layers upon layers of thick, green branches. The busy, noisy world is nearby. So close you can almost feel it pressing closer. But here, with the tall graceful trees and the whispering of the wind, it is peaceful. Quiet. Nothing hurries here...

The wooded path stretches before me, safely enclosed by kindly branches. Leaves crackle softly underfoot, my skirts swishing against the rough tree trunks as I walk.

Just so you know,
there’s a place that I go
when I am alone.
A place I have claimed
for my own.

A place seldom seen
but in the echo of a dream,
an otherworld prize
for those with the right
sort of eyes.

Where shadows and light
diffuse day and night,
a forest of gold
where I think of the tales
I’ve been told.

Where myth lingers yet
in those who do not forget.
Where the years pass unstained
and the phantoms of time
still remain.