Disclaimer: Not mine, you know how it goes.....

A shadow whispers through the night,

Drifting through the shadowed woods, with

Pale regret his sole companion.

A name that he cannot recall,

A past that slips through clutching fingers,

Memories frayed like mist at dawn,

Fading fast, gone beyond recall.

Questions without answers are

All that now remain. He wonders

What manner of man he may be;

Or if, indeed, he is a man.

In clear and golden light of day,

All clad in shining hero's garb,

He seems the very essence of

All things that make a man a man,

Courage hath he in full measure,

Honour, the lifeblood of his soul,

And passion both for life and love,

Surpassing that of mortal men.

In light of day, under the sun...

But when darkling night creeps in,

Slipping sly through crack and cranny

To twine about his heart and mind,

The man retreats and from the depths,

The beast is, for a time, unchained.

Free, unleashed, he roams the woods

To taste the flowing wind and to

Watch the patterns of the world flow

About him through root, leaf and branch,

To hunt, and catch, and hunt again; he

Lives, and living frees himself

From the ties that bind the man, and

Is in his heart content at last.

But something always calls him back,

To trap himself in raiment of

A mighty hero, sworn to protect.

Perhaps, at times, he yearns to go

And leave those trappings far behind;

To run until the world runs out,

And leave the human world behind.

But such will never be, he knows,

Although he chafe at the restraints

That by his own choice he hath made,

He will not, by choice, let them go.

For even in the darkest night,

The beast hath still, within, a man.

End