As moonlight silvered silhouettes of home

  Internal restless chatter of dissent

  Arose between unthinking Rest and Roam

  “This bitter worrying will leave us spent!”

  “Then tell us, prithee, where the hours went.”

  “Put out the light, it spills beneath the door!”

  “Quite right, a shadow-veil will serve us more.”

  Decided, Khazemil scooped up the ash

  Of cooling embers underneath his pot

  And struck across his neck a sable dash

  Bright innocence, how effortlessly sought!

  The dismal lightbulb out, an afterthought

  “Goodnight, late parchment visions in the gloom!

  Awake, I seek a less depressing doom.”

  With silent measured steps and flicking gaze

  Among entreating whisper-shadow forms

  Where inky vapors fringed well-hidden ways

  Blind wisps, far rustling, insensate swarms

  His tunic blending in to vesper storms

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  The fox retraced his steps that afternoon

  Invisible, enraptured, and immune

  Night-damp the path retained its eager dust

  No lamp, no eyes, no sign perturbed the way

  One turn aside, “He’s here, the one I trust!

  I’ll take him with me, only to relay

  The danger of his nearing harvest day.”

  There was no lock, the orphan dog alone

  Asleep, soft furry face as still as stone

  Despite himself Khazemil lingered there

  A fleeting thought, “Is it my right to choose?

  Dark claws to pierce a youth yet sleek and fair—

  Sharp claws to strike another fate and lose

  The future I enjoin him to refuse.”

  With fear beyond what nighttime airs could voice

  The fox reached out and trembling made his choice

  “What’s that? Who is it? Khazemil! So late!”

  But from the somber gleaming in his eye

  The dog fell silent, motioning to wait

  Quick dressing in his amber robe whereby

  The fox had good excuse to turn and cry.

  “What happened yesterday is why I’m here,

  I need your sober guidance, Merrasir.”

  A stripe of snow that split the charcoal mane

  A swipe of ash, not one but two to hide

  “I saw the endless dark, and asked in vain

  How long I could go on without a guide,

  My father said ‘it ends today;’ he lied—

  I worked a day, and so I shall again

  But I cannot recall what pulls me in.”