Shepherds come in strange robes.

The wisest wear black.

Sometimes they walk in the shadows and guide the sheep while the sun hangs low above the hilltop.

The severe calls and cries of these twilight wanderers carry over miles of empty fields and brutal storms.

Yet their sonorous stories land somewhere.

Ash fills the rivers of their hands as they cup the sound and once spoken the dust returns to the Earth.

It matters not that it traveled far or short, but that for a moment, it was lifted.

Lifted by an ordinary golden man cloaked in black.

The sun must come down into darkness everyday. With each morning he rises.

Rises with the dewy flowers and rustling deer.

But that story is only a fantasy. For now.