Tetrad
~ by Shane Parker
In the shadow of breath,
in the throat of darkness
there was a slow ululation,
building through the empty cavity
where naught but the vapid wind
blew unheard.
Suddenly, in the waste of never,
a symbol crash, followed by three more.
They resounded through the deep, cool darkness,
awakening....awakening...
Forever was given lease unto all.
Gaeden was formed in the upper cleaves
of the tempest range,
where silver silk hung loose and thrummed
like a garland of living energy.
This world was kept by he who sets the sun
into the rim, tucking it away,
and then at his will, placing it
for unclouded eyes to see and treasure.
This world was green and vast,
regal and disciplined.
Life sang its sweet, angelic lullabies.
Mir, formed in the palatial space
between the twin spirals of miracuul.
The left, reaching into always and forever,
the right, reaching merely towards
where the eye can see, the inferior brother,
shamed for whatever obligatory reason.
This world was as silver as laughter,
as bright as a fallowed spring
and the grinning Aihr held it aloft
over a river of icy-green dust,
regarding it with shimmering eyes.
Life shone brighter here than anywhere else.
Earth, in the Milky way,
was blinked into existence.
Destined for the rising of Lord, God,
YHWH, the frock worn by none yet,
cloaking the world,
fluttered in the breath of wind
that still shook through forever,
an omen of the deep and beautiful sentinel
that was to come, when it’s creatures
could flourish.
But for now, it was merely a ball of ebony,
lost in its little corner of the cosmos.
YHWH had not yet touched it.
Life caressed the tender edges of its borders,
not yet ready to embrace it. Not yet ready
for the breath of holy wind.
And finally, forming the tetrad,
was Nyaerlok...a dead space of elemental hate.
Something so blind and vast, reaching
across to the other worlds with gnarled,
shadowy fingers and affecting the flux
of all creation to come.
A catatonic thing, with no form to speak of,
but nonetheless it drank the light
from all things around it.
Seeing past all things, present,
future, and past,
it simply was. It simply knew.
Ahnrakahn scuttled and skiffed around its breadth,
teaching it the ways of suffering,
gloating about, as unformed as the space itself,
whispering savagely into nothingness.
Unlife pulsed in ragged, thunderous baratones.
This, the tetrad, would remain
and change...interluding between the
shuddering, half crazed breaths of inspiration
and the resounding scream of realization.
But forever the void will persist.
The void is dark.
The void is frenzy.
