The pregnant clouds rumble overhead,
The atmosphere as heavy as my heart.
The meagre light has long given up.
Bracing against the fierce icy winds,
I walk across the rocky plain.

A moment of stark stillness
As lightning forks across the sky;
And I see the ground gently dipping
Leading to a circular green depression
With black boulders strewn across

As thunder shakes the world
I take shelter under a rocky promontory
Jutting up from an edge of the circle
And wonder at the perfectly round boulders
Hewn by some giant in ages past.

As the dusk deepens,
And the winds die down,
And the world waits with bated breath,
The weariness of my mind takes me
And I slip into a restless sleep.

I wake to the sound of rain and music.
The night is as pitch.
But there is light swirling in the rocks,
Gold, red, blue and green,
Whirling around inside the hard blackness.

And as the colours dance,
I hear the sound of lutes and lyres,
Of harps and flutes and violas,
And of instruments whose beauty
Is not meant for the newer ages.

Thoughts come unbidden into my mind.
The music dredges up forgotten faces.
Lost voices rise up in my memory.
Futures wilt and dead pasts resurface,
And Regrets take root and flourish.

Vanquished by this wicked magic,
I bow my heavy head,
Hide my tears in my drawn up knees,
Hug myself against the onslaught
And drown in the deluge of that cruel symphony.