Text from Halloween - Night Clouds

1. Listen.  Silence settles in the cloud-cloak
over the graying straight of sylvan grounds.
Treading softly there, a stranger who’s set
to stalk the leaf-rugs of the sleeping trees
with lit torch, hardened staff, and gleaming knife,
lifts her eyes up to the taupe canopy.
The branches’ scraping signifies winter;
an icy gale pierces her slender back.

At the hollow tree, whose trunk is heightened
10. by time and tortured by lordly-lightning,
the girl stops and waits, black eyes stabbing night
in hopes of sighting the boy, her release.
Silent as currents under a glass-strait,
the boy appears, his slate-hued cloak snapping
with vigor of life in wind behind him.

He greets her with an eager smile of heat,
a laugh so gentle, it annihilates
the darkness, shadows, and bitter silence.
The two together terminate rawness
20. with fire, light, and flavorful discourse.
Around the blazes, they let down their hoods,
drape their cloaks across each other’s shoulders,
and stare at the flickering, friendly flames.

The spicy snake-sparks that slither up, up
try their hardest to reach the pearly moon,
but individually, they each fail.
She lifts her gaze and feels rain fall down, down.
“What hopelessness exists in each,” she says,
“Fire would return to golden heaven
30. while water would destroy vice-ridden earth.”
“Both result in perfection,” he counters,
“yet they do so through different methods.”

The boy sits beside her, pale skin gleaming
with sweat from the flames, veined hands glowing soft,
ebony eyes stoked with bold-hearted hate,
an expression that she put into him.
His broad black back rises and fades away
but returns with logs secure in each fist.
Methodically, he inclines forward
50. over the fire, hides his face in cloth,
and steps in the coals, tossing a log in
and gazing at the shower of hot sparks
as they rise in front of his sharp, clenched jaw.
Without even glancing at her small frame,
he returns twice to add more dry-fodder,
then after his third drop, he fades away
to black and penetrating loneliness.
He ducks low and sprints into the forest.
leaving the female alone to nighttime.

Write on!
Clove
P.S. This is a dramatized, little piece about what I did last Halloween at a Reformation Celebration.  If you notice, it's in the style of Beowulf, complete with kennings and alliteration.  ^_^