Serpent

This is the poem in Sacrifice, originally written for summer camp in UW.

Iridescent mist rings the lake

 

Though calm on the surface,

A memory of hate,

Taints the air up to this very day,

Summer's peak, when sacrifice is made.

 

Graceful silver stretch and rise,

Silver jaws snapping, snapping high.

What pale sun peeks through morning sky

Catches the glimpse of Death's very eye.

 

Serpent rears back, roars once and strikes,

Tearing through everything with her deadly might.

Screams of terror fill the air:

"No! Please stop! This isn't fair!"

 

Silver stretches over, and closes its jaws.

Ending the screams and the terrible calls.

It sinks back to water and soon everything is still.

No hint at all of its latest kill.

 

But under that dreadful silver outside

A princess's spirit still lives, still hides.

A curse to turn back what had went wrong.

Woven from gold, but a legend long gone.

 

And maybe, just maybe, the bracelet shall be found.

And the two bands shall exchange on the serpent's ground.

And maybe, just maybe, she shall return.

For as soon as she comes, we shall all learn.

 

The nature of her captive, to what reason he has found.

To take our sun from our skies, the sky from the grounds.

And maybe, just maybe, we may rest at last.

Freed from that sacrifice the serpent has cast.

 

And maybe, just maybe, all shall be well.

For our land and our people and to the ones who have fell.

And the serpent, the serpent, is silver like the moon.

But that silver is missing, and it's now only gloom.

 

We pray you to come back, we miss you still.

We pray you to come back, to our lands and our mills.

We pray that the bracelets, the bracelets will change.

We pray that the moon shall once again hang.

 

And if the air shall, the lake shall, taint with hate.

And if this curse shall lift on this very day.

Summer's peak, summer's peak, when sacrifice is made.

We pray that you shall return, in the skies you again lay."