Knight and Death

“Protect me Oh King!
For Death hangs his sword over my head!
Met him by the gardens with a crippling feel
Death certainly wants me dead,”
trembling, petrified, and exhausted,
the knight knelt before his Lord
Hoping for mercy and refuge,
his pleas travelled to all lands, heaven across.
“Look hither into the eyes
No one can harm your hair under my sight,
mount the fastest beauty of mine
Soar ten miles south on his hooves that fly.”
Higher and higher he soared towards night,
As King’s fastest horse, with hooves like wings, drove the flight
Tricking death, evading his sight
His escape through woods, he prayed, mustn’t turn a far cry
Misty air teasing the gnarled roots
An ominous forest, birds kept mute even in daylight.
Back at the garden, Death waited and waited
Having been approached by King,
He expressed the hunt to be ill fated,
“Saw him at the garden
Strolling without a worry
What he was doing here is not known,
As I was to meet him in another town.
And unless he rides a horse with hooves like wings,
his foot won’t step in there ten miles south
Bearing this ill-fated destiny that I have
I wonder if he’s still here,
ten miles south who’ll be found?
- Vinayaki