The Gathering

Self honesty is often the hardest won prize.
I walked under summer dusty trees,
boughs sagging with heat,
handfast with the shades of my unquiet dead,
whispering of pain and loss.

They led me slowly,
in the shadowed gloaming
to a place where truth dwells...
alone.

An icy hand reached deep inside my midnight soul,
shattering the chains and bonds that 'prisoned me.
I saw truth in the lucent light of reason restored,
laughing at what sat before me.

The demons that so tormented my once enthralled soul
seemed wizened and foolish to my newly opened mind
as they sat gibbering and weeping
over losing their prize.

Newly clothed in the white light of redeemed innocence,
my loving dead named me Slayer,
arming me with the Sword of Insight,
wakening the warrior spirit inside me.

Standing before the mirror of Truth,
plunging Insight deep into my beating heart,
I saw...the enemy
and knew he was me.

Freed from bondage of selfish pain and loss,
we danced under midnight skies,
until dawn's first pellucid light,
bade me release my beloved spirits.

My upturned face watched them soar,
freed by my loving soul,
their arms lifted in joy.
On their way home
to the place where Truth dwells.. alone.