Echoing Footsteps Poem by Cody O'Hara

Echoing footsteps down the alley
Her shadow figure conforming to the walls

The lights illuminate
But where light shines, darkness follows

A single hair wavers
A trembling realization

Deeper darkness in shadow
Marked with blood

A westerly wind whistles past
Carrying with it hope

A small shop comes into view
The sign of wood etched with red lettering

西の風

A fragrance like silk flows within
Enticing, yet full of poison

A fallen dream, something nightmares fear
The truth of a lie

Lit from within with a pallor
Mask of death, render of minds

The figure stands forlorn
Or is it a mirror in which the shadow views itself

Where to turn in the dusk
Shadows falling

Find a light soon or be lost
The westerly wind still blows on

The flicker and waver of a spark
A life, a lost soul

How deep does it go
What secrets lie there

Echoing, always echoing
Forever and a minute echoing

Still the figure continues on
Alone, for shadows have no shadow

Voices bidding her onward
A light above

Up and up
Climbing towards a radiance unseen

A shadow in the light is nothing
Or so the eye will believe

Former friends fall
Merely shades

Once again alone she sighs
Blind in the beauty

The closer to the light the more known
And the less understood

The westerly breeze is no longer
But now a gale tearing up the earth

The sky opens and the ground recedes
In her path to redemption the next gate has opened