The White Fur and the Highland Haze
A Lament from Ice and Stone Where Arctic winds in mourning moan, And stars weep cold in twilight’s tone, A polar bear named Jayamukh roamed, Through lands that once were crowned, enthroned. He stalked the floe, the seal, the tide, But all he knew began to slide. The sea grew thin, the ice grew weak, And hunger hollowed heart and cheek. Far from his home, beyond the mist, Where mountains by the sun are kissed, A Yeti, draped in storm and snow, Watched highland springs no longer flow. From glaciers tall to dusty stone, He wandered now, estranged, alone. The sacred peaks of frost and prayer, Now whispered loss into the air. They met beneath a twilight gray, Where neither night nor dawn would stay. No words were used, yet minds aligned, In grief two worlds had long confined. Jayamukh’s Thought, a freezing breeze: "The ice retreats, the silence seethes, Each floe I chase, the ocean breathes— But not with life, not with the past, Just warming waves that rise too fast." ...