The Magician Rises (Poem)

Dropping the book in fear,
the strange magician took flight down the street,
a crooked warren of stones tumbling him forwards.

In desperation, he grasped for a gaslit streetlight post,
and whirled himself around the corner,
discarded strings of rain flowering behind him.

His eyes, now a straw yellow, honeyed with fear,
took in the hat bobbing closer to a drain's opening,
and he stumbled downwards,
fingers madly scrabbling,
a broken aura of magic tinkling to the street in shards.

Muttering and mumbling, he finally clenched his hat,
as thunder like a rolling timpani swept into the air.

Soaked, wrinkled and triumphant,
the silent magician began to weep into his hat,
as the current formed different patterns around his knees,
continuing its inexorable journey towards blackness.

His muttering did not cease,
even as he stood up,
the ripped hem of his robe catching in a gathering gust,
the wind singing a dangerous tune.

"I will paint this life with magic," he whispered,
flicking the hat open with a practiced movement,
and placing it atop his weathered head.

Only then did he begin his slow gait,
away from a terrible hidden storm,
away from a book being swallowed in silt,
and towards a direction from where no one has come.