(Click here to follow Pavel's ongoing epic poem “The Shoulder of the Sun.” You may visit Pavel's website at http://www.greyowlpress.com.)
by Pavel Chichikov
Come, I will show you a place you've never seen
The long road ends before it, then begins again –
Climb the long hill, breast the steep incline
Reach the walls, this palace, this refugium
Guarded, guarded by a white wall of storms
Defended by a black boughed wood from any harm
Here the blinded walker has a bent stick to lean
Passes underneath the arch of his second dream
Hears around him voices, shod hooves on straw
Low voices speaking and a soft hand to draw
Him inward gently to a small place and warm –
Fire in his vision field but no solid form
I have seen the outside and have drawn quite near
The lifetime of me has consumed my flesh of fear
Now I see it rise above me on a hill
Where every culmination of the world is still
Everything that goes inside the pale is blind
For vision to abide is of another kind –
Invisible the fortress of enormous size
Where those who have been blinded can regain their eyes
