The first time I walked alone

I was five and I was skipping down the trail of a foggy morning

Where the cold slunk around my feet like a stealthy cat

Coiling up and settling in my hair like a small snake

And I see creatures of the mist that skulked and leapt

In the whispering morning of silence

I held in my hand a small lantern that was burning

Yet the heat couldn’t penetrate the chilly veil of minute beads of water

I walked on and on, then the walk became a jog, then a run

The flame of the lantern still as ever and without even a quiver

As I raced down the road in pursuit of a creature I had just saw (it looked like a stag)

My hand was so busy fumbling for the flame to see if it had gone out

That I missed the only chance that I could've reached that thing

Which seemed to melt into the fog and turn around then smile

A smile that stretched from antler to antler

I backed off down the trail--I have merely awe with eyebrows flying off my forehead

But the lantern went out and the mist engulfed me

And I sat down and wept in icy tears

When I woke up from my sleep the mist had cleared and it was dusk

Where the lantern's weak flame had lit up again

Flickering and dancing at my feet like the Powwow of the Indians, bending my shadow into a giant

So I picked it up and staggered off like a drunkard clutching his bottle of dreams and fantasies

To find nothing but only a slab of stone in the middle of the road entitled with my own baby face

Which crumbled into the ground and left me there, staring into the gathering fog ahead of me

And I blew the lantern out--this time it did die

Walking off into the distance of the dreamy mist that seemed to wave to me in the warm air of the night