Clawmarked Stone

Timescarred jackals half-submerged in sand stand

Guard—though over what, none have lived to tell.

With rumors coming from lost caravans

Of how the wayward hear a haunting bell

And while the locals all know better than

To pilfer the ruins beneath the dunes,

Whose gates were shut before the dawn of man,

There was a fool who went once to his doom.

Yes, I went in search of long-lost secrets

Of those who lived when time had yet been named

But these halls are vast, the pathways ceaseless;

A darkness hunts me, one which light can’t tame.

So though my pockets swell with inkworn tomes

My own tale will be told in clawmarked stone