Lost

Once upon a dreary drudge as I traveled through the mud,

I followed a man across the mountains- through a land of iron fountains.

As a black smog filled the air, we sat and drank of Camombair,

And traded stories of clearer days unchecked by the wintry haze

That choked the sky and sun and air, and stole the trees of their hair

So long spent and taken to grow.  To just regress with nothing to show.

As we sipped at our cups of tin, I turned to the stranger and asked of him,

“Where it we are headed?  For it seems here the life has been ejected

And left for another place and time.  What is the reason?  What is the rhyme?”

The steam issuing from our cups of tin seemed to disappear in

The smog that predated on all inside with one small look of its small black eyes.

Then he answered with a voice full of remorse and rasp and hoarse.

“I do not know, for I am lost after walking the trail encased in frost

With no signs of where trail ends or where trail bends

To break through trees into sunlight.  For now we are stuck in the dead of night.”

His answer left me horror stricken.  From now on the clock was ticking.

We were lost among the frost and all the rocks had lost their moss

From the blanketing smog- thick and black- that constantly followed behind our backs.

Our shadows were lost among the darkness that blew trumpets as if to harken

The casting of the gloom and the coming of our doom.

He turned to me with bloodshot eyes as he nervously patted his sooty thighs

And his breath rasped as if broken and he slowly began choking.

Down his throat the smog did reach, and then it began to leech

The browned color of his skin and the strength from all his limbs.

His hair did wilt like flowers in winter and his eyes lost their shimmer

That he had contained for only this trip.  With excitement and smiling lips.

Since that day I’ve been alone, running in search of the sun’s throne

Where I can finally reach the golden light, and escape the dead of night.