L’enfer

I am alive again

and I am never going back 

into the box of l’enfer

where the dead are wracked.

For six months, and six

and six

we moved through the 

tunnel of eclipse

pursued by terror

while dark wings flapped

above us but out of reach

over our heads.

Those hours taught us

that many of the kind

and delicate observances 

we had rendered in the past

were worthless 

against the great arc

of keeping the lights 

of spirit and intellect 

burning. 

Reaching your hand

down into the morass

saved me 

and then I could save another

and so the chain passed on. 

Until August,

I thought the gods were silent

that we had been abandoned

and messengers 

angelic or otherwise

would leave us in the shadows

of the oubliette

until we had disintegrated.

To be honest

I was only holding on 

out of habit 

and that is why

I am building a moondial 

to mark the hours of darkness 

and measure each night

when the light will come again.