Moving carefully through misty midnight mountains
He feels the lovely lurking of her ravished soul,
Can not decide whether nighttime napping or forward
Moving will enhance his chance of softened woes.
Onward through the forest of feathered ferns he presses
Unable to shake her eerie presence, her lingering.
Wooded glens, damp with morning dew drip
With her scents as perfume droplets alight his skin
He passes trembling trolls, creeping through on his way to clarity—clearings
Openings of sun and mossy lined edges of alpine grass,
Fawn imprints near mother doe’s trail lead him
And she follows, longing for a forever-tether to his now ambling stroll.
Heading deep within the woodland, cast in rare moonlight rays
Silence warns him, moves him closer to river bend
where the spirits come unhinged from one another—floating
Freely, finally, to the valley floor. She, wailing, calls him
He, unmoved, advances to the moment of the unpinning.
They stop just short of the undoing spot.
Circling round she pleads for time. Slow, retracting footsteps,
Breathless moments waiting. Will he part the final boughs
Severing the bind twixt him and her or could she whisper something
Sweetly before his final, lasting stride split their union forever twain?
“Whiuuu,” the wind wraps round his shoulders, flutters, furious
For a moment more.
Then, as light takes dark away, he moves around her dreaded portal.
She thrills, whirls elated, bound forever to his love—and he, wandering
On past the woods and dales moves unworried to the shore.
Ships await him and he will board as soon as she unwraps his heartstrings
That wind around her and another love.
Word Play 