The Guard and the Trader and Mage
An elk, a strong and fervent spirit
glides across the expansive dusk,
night comes to the tundra
and the trader, down on his luck
continues on the old cobble path.
The guard, ever watchful,
keeps his eyes not astray
though he cannot keep himself from
starlight views, nor can the mage who say
“Each of these,
a magnificent star,
a light of magic in the Aether afar,
is my source of power at night
when the sun’s sweet Magnan rays
do not alight.”
And the farmer, who returns from a long
evening's work,
his leeks all aligned,
his hoe stuck in the dirt,
enters the bar that the fair maiden keeps
his questions interrupted by the
splashing of drink,
at the table across,
where the old warrior gazes at the sight
of the bard who sings,
and keeps spirits light,
like the wind, that had come earlier that day
and swept over the tundra-elk’s back,
who drinks from the clear blue pond as he may,
and, unlike man or mer, declines to ever look back.