Woman of the Wiles

I. Echo

Gnarled branches cramped the air
Owls in the treetops stared
A broken man on battered knees
Gazed upwards to the canopy

Then from his lips a cry arose
Cold and wind the woods enclosed
His shout as icy as the frost
What once was fair was choked and lost

Tree and leaf by chill was razed
The forest now a frozen waste
Yet still the Watcher stood alone
For flesh and bone had turned to stone

So as the ages come and go
He who watches, in ancient snow
Indifferent to the wish of men
Sleeps in the Wiles of Eruðinen

II. Vision

Upon a chance one day there came
A maiden to that tundra’d plain
From home and hearth in halls ablaze
To walk the Wiles and tempt the fates

With a start she came upon
The Watcher and his watch at dawn
Her trembling hand then grazed the stone
That eons there had found a home

To be continued…