The Lake Poem by Nagourta

He had always wandered whilst he slept,
Waking wherever he had walked.
Never had it taken him too far,
Often he went home drifting with the stars.
He aged and remained in the house that contained
Every memory in his being
Until he could no longer linger there.
His parent purchased a house in a grove
And they took him there, for he never drove, then
They went away, and left him alone.

There was a night, some thirty days in,
A cold inhalation awoke him and alarmed him.
In the black quietude the man was quite lost
And saw nothing but a distant glow.
He began to walk toward the light,
Dazzled and amazed.
The trees groped upwards,
Grasping at the darkest moon,
Ever-taller they grew as ever-closer the glow approached,
After a time he came into a clearing.
A clearing in the trees.
A lake descended before him,
Just beginning to freeze.
It stretched across the land, between him and the other side
And there was an island, like the heart of the water
Upon which a great white tree ascended towards the great darkness.
By the man’s feet in the woods where he stood
There lay a small boat that appeared as though it could
Float along the foggy shattered glass
Always towards that distant glow.

He began his watery trip to finish his strange quest
But when he was not quite halfway done he felt something,
A chilling touch pooled beneath him and he knew
That he was sinking.
He swam to that island when his boat was gone
Hungry and cold and completely alone,
His fragile frame was quite discomposed.
He crawled to the tree and collapsed in defeat,
Feeling the magic of that place flowing within him.
He shuddered and accepted what was to come,
Looked skyward, to the limbs of the great tree,
Glimmering weirdly in the night,
And was done.
He closed his eyes
Forever.