The Wayfarer and the Lady in the Glade

“O, to be on my way again,” I cried with such exuberance that I couldn’t hide if I’d of tried. Mollifying a mind weary from the city’s blaring terrible noise.

From men in vicious packs.
From women in cheap hats and whores in burlap sacks.
From the shade that begs for a nickels worth of acknowledgment.
And from the delighted moans of the decadent.
And from the tax man spouting alms for the king.

In the long view I could only distinguish the largest tower in the city. Athwart that, there was only a faint, alabaster haze. I let my gaze wander and there in the glade before me, a dervish whirling, there she was. Arms spread and flailing, she went sailing upon the wind. Like a cinder, only slowly. And wailing, she did croon the tune by which she was moved. And she, so immersed in the hard, ardent, green garden, she never stopped. Never dropped this silly game that she played; alone. I stayed on the far side of the glade, but still walking.

Stepping to the rhythm of her song, I could not stop edging forward, like I was being pulled a rope knotted around my gyrating hips. I called to her, now closer. I tried to tell her the importance of what she did. And what she did to me. But as soon as my words had passed I grasped her horror completely. To be found in such a state.

She gasped and ran.

I called, “Stay, stay, there is something great here that you have made. We could spend eternity dancing here in the suns rays. Will you stay with me here in your own glade? Or ponder with me that dusty way?” But by then she was gone from sight.