XV

We strode into the dawn's soft dark
with light held twixt our palms,
intentions mapping Destiny
but Fate penning our psalms.

The lonely land was welcoming
to our intruders' gait.
Each footstep both a scorpion's kiss
and petty balm too late.

Yet willing wind whipped up a wake,
our progress tracked in dust.
The world, despite our race's hate,
was welcoming of us.

We walked, a couple meek and small,
and sought our final goal,
no longer aimless or alone.
I willed my world to stroll.


XVI

The acres passed beneath our feet
and acorns turned to trees.
The years drove sun to shyly peep
through black sky's storm-swept seas.

We ate of our companionship;
a feast served up by love,
two bottom-feeding shadow crabs
become a soaring dove.

As we evolved to suckle hope
and learn again to breathe
without the poison's nurturing,
the daytime sought reprieve.

We came to know a happiness,
a freedom of a sort,
in us a perfect symmetry
not to our past distort.


XVII

But beauty cannot have her way
while evil draws a breath,
and dirty Fate came out to play
just as we cheated death.

Despite the decade spent as two,
we knew work still remained.
We still sought to the world renew;
repentance for the stains.

As prophecy dogged at our heels
uneasy and afraid,
we felt the toll of doleful bells
through air now tasting staid.

Somewhere ahead, humanity
had dug itself a hole,
and t'ward the peals of travesty
we wandered with our souls.