When wood creaks

And smells of incense, 

Your eye widens and leaks...

Your heart stops and listens.

 

The dark is horizontal;

Too compressed to allow a flame

Ignite.

The dark is not elemental;

Surreal enough to wrench the tame

And burn.

 

But this wood holds a 

Light,

And this wood enjoys

To perish.

It is not natural for this bird in

Flight,

To care for our joys

And allow its perfect nature

Blemish.

 

The wood halts

And the fire is beckoning.

A figure throws salts

Into the air, cleansing.

 

"Carpe diem!", the figure yells.

A woman, dying, nonetheless.

A spark from her chest expels,

A spark younger than hers

Nevertheless.

She ceases to exist.

 

Our men, a quartet,

Approaches the wood in tandem.

A ballet of faces rued which in time

Maddened.

 

The wood they open,

Thrown aside.

Myths of olden

Spread in wide.

 

On a table they see

Cards arranged.

The most colorful depictions

Laid displayed.

 

"Death", "The Chariot",

"The Devil", "The Hermit."

They make an arc 

Around their beacon.

"La Lune", it read, and light

She permit.

 

La Lune burned,

But our men felt no heat.

It grew in might,

Our men cried in defeat.

 

No beauty they have ever seen;

Though beauty they had never known.

With their hands many women they have seen,

And neither they could ever own.

 

However, something wicked 

They all shared.

A thought in common;

To corruption they'll be led. 

 

With laced hands 

To their plan they succumbed.

Across various lands

Traveled La Lune.

 

A blessing she was

To the few who cherished her.

She was prayed to during mass,

Our love, La Lune, our

Healer.

 

La Lune unto the dark drew dimensions,

Time she established.

La Lune grew never licentious;

Holy, virgin, never tarnished.

 

The quartet squandered 

La Lune's power the most.

Their last days they too leisured

And for their final breath they raised a toast.

 

"May La Lune be ours," 

The men recited, "Now 

And forever, until the

Saints come marching in."

And their souls breathed dead.

 

A week has passed.

A month or two followed. 

La Lune drawn remained 

Over a table, forever borrowed.

 

Words are carried by winds

And the wind is pleasant to hear.

La Lune enjoyed to listen

And the old words to her chest brought a tear.

 

"May La Lune remain with them," La Lune mocked.

A woman in the card's stead now stood.

Regal, queenly, malicious,

Toxic and addictive to us.

 

By a whisper, the dead rose.

Their bodies mangled and weathered.

Among the living they roamed.

La Lune for them their fault she played

And through their suffering they were judged.

La Lune, unforgiving.

 

Yet, an unlikely being

Dawned over the broken Lune.

St. Peter cursed the men's wickedness

And forced them into their eternal dwelling.

 

"Go home now, dearest," St. Peter rose, 

And hung the moon among the blue and stars.

"At last," declared La Lune,

And for eons her noose kept her unharmed.