The Marble Palace

- The Marble Palace -

A Journey Into Surrender

Part One: The Palace Doors

A winding road across the land, a land of many times,
Taken from many worlds, to populate a space between.
Unto such a place was I drawn through veils of dream!
And so, clad in raiment of spirit, I reached such climes...
And therein sought to meet a most fair, familiar queen.
Even though I walked where little was as it may seem!
I saw a multitude of people, of every age and kindred,
Walking into a great marble palace with a roof pure red.
And so upon the double doors, I knocked there steadily,
Until they opened on their own, and I did enter readily.

Part Two: The Page and the Mage

Within was a vast library that reached from floor to roof,
Containing many volumes, and each volume full of truth.
Stairways climbed up three levels high and three deep...
Flanked by statues of lions seeming frozen in mid-creep.
All was as white within as it had been upon the outside,
And nowhere could I tell wherein the queen might abide.
I spoke to people who could not stay, who faded away,
Like ghosts before my eyes, they: uncertain of the way.
I was no less without a guide, but finally a ghostly page,
He told me the queen was guarded by a powerful mage.

Part Three: The Mage's Amulet

The lamps that lit the palace began to dim as night came,
And I fled to where the mage was pacing ever nervously.
His hair and beard were black, his robes as red as flame,
He waited, whilst I asked about the queen of his country.
She is a prisoner below, he said, beyond the Door of Set!
And only wearing an amulet could reveal to one the door.
He gave me a white pendant, and then as if with regret...
The mage told me to seek an emerald I had seen before.
And so about the palace I sought the emerald as so told,
But nowhere could it be found, though I sought so bold!

Part Four: The Queen's Emerald

Past a series of huge windows overlooking a forest wild,
I found a living room containing a statue of a young child.
A girl whose face was familiar, with an emerald held high!
And so I claimed the prize; to the stairs I was drawn nigh.
Three levels down, past green demons with curved horns,
Whose voices did rumble, like loud thunder during storms.
Only by averting their gazes could I win my passage free,
So down the final steps did I, my perilous goal, finally see.
A room contained two pillars flanking a marble statue, tall,
Of a half-man creature with a jackal's head against a wall.

Part Five: The Door of Set

I placed the emerald in the hole of the amulet I held out...
And put it around the statue's neck with no fear or doubt.
Between the pillars, the statue began to fade in thin air...
Whilst a round, glowing doorway started to appear there.
The Door of Set, of which the mage had spoken so fearful,
I walked through the door, with my eyes become tearful...
For on the other side was a horrid place I knew to be Hell,
The sky was aflame, and the ground black as a deep well.
A little girl with hair pale as platinum called to me at last...
From across a chasm of fire, she called, from out the past.

Part Six: The Child and the Flame

Her face was the same as that of the child's statue I saw,
In the marble palace, where a queen had made the law...
I now stood before her, but because of a wide, flaming pit,
There was not any way to reach her; none, to overcome it.
I begged the queen come to her servant, and so I passed,
Whatever this test was; it was over, and in a moment fast.
The child's feet grew flaming wings, and she came to me...
Her eyes were green as emeralds so glowing for all to see!
From her back were now six wings blazing with scarlet fire,
And her face was not a child's, but a queen's: full of desire.

Part Seven: The Kiss of Surrender

I felt the queen pick me up and fly me into the endless air,
Where she became a woman so regal, an angel most fair!
She kissed me madly, with a passion born of undying thirst,
So like my own longing for love, that tears from me burst...
And those tears looked like blood in the hot, reddish glare!
I surrendered to my angel, my eyes dazzled by the flare...
Of her wings and her eyes, and a face perfect as a statue,
Yet warm, full of life and love, both ever young and mature.
Only in surrender was the spell broken, my spirit released,
To return to this world, having been by an angel so teased!