The Candle-Maker and Her Knights Questing
The candle-maker wears a silken gown
Of blackest ink and broidered gibbous moons
And shiver stars. The candles, lowered down
With supple wrist while humming mirthless tunes,
Are dipped in iron vat of paraffin,
Some bacon fat, and amber wax from bees.
Without a care, she tells the knights within
Her boundless chambers standing ill at ease
Their newest quest to find the keys to fit
The door of nacred castle floating high
Above in Land of Summer Clouds. Such writ
Beyond is meet for them to signify.
The clanking paladins on horse approach
The way and halt. The lacquered Purple grim
With battered shield and whispered self-reproach
And grimmer Gray, his dented visor scrim
To all he sees, dismount and gaze at sheer
Escarpment. Rusted sword and broken lance
Are left behind with other shoddy gear.
The weary coursers hobbled, wait perchance,
In nearby verdant lea with limpid stream.
The templars errant scale the cliff in frayed
And filthy quilted coats and did beseem
Two bloated spiders climbing palisade.
They crest the rim then gather sticks, begin
A small and sadly crackling fire to warm
Their bones. The sky is deeper blue than in
The Ocean’s deathly calm before the storm.
A brief repast of cheese and wine and soon
Recline on ground for snoring sleep and dreams
Of dragons slayed as half a mimsy moon
Arises. It sails through whimsy veils and beams
With pallid lustre. Morning comes a pink
And orange smear with castle floating high.
Its splendored battlements a blushing brink
Above the rosy line of land and sky.
The men awaken, see the keep on clouds.
They rub the sleep from eyes and travel west
To reach the citadel on billowed shrouds.
They walk all day toward their sacred quest
But pacing forward only pushes back
The lofty fastness. Gloaming finds it just
As far away. In granite cul de sac,
The noble knights espy in whirling dust
A wizard long in beard awaiting them.
Fatigued and mystified, they ask, “Dear sir,
Consult your sorcerous, refulgent gem
And tell us please, what magic spell it were,
Will carry us to yonder castle’s keys?”
“No magic’s needed,” said the thaumaturge,
“Because the beams of ashen moon do seize
The airy edifice and, tethered, merge
It with the near horizon, simply stalk
It through the night. Then climb, when close enough,
A silvered ray to reach the castle walk.”
With faith renewed, the questers, slip and scuff
And stagger through the dark to argent thread
Connecting skying keep to ground. Again,
Two swollen spiders climbing overhead
Arrive at heavy, rusted gate and then
They see the glowing keys are hanging there
On brazen hook. The Purple grimly lifts
The golden skeletons and back they fare
To candle-maker’s cottage where he gifts
The keys to her. She puts them in the bowl
With all the others. Infinite, it pends,
This stick of flaxen wicks. She dips them whole,
They don’t increase, and questing never ends.
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