When the heights of heaven were yet unnamed

and the chaos of the world not yet tamed,

before the web of words was set,

or the first thought snared in illusion’s net,

I saw the raven’s shadow seep

from behind the hidden walls of sleep

to cut the air on wings of thorns,

trailing behind it mists and storms,

raising the first ever rippling wake

on the face of the Obsidian Lake.

Before I heard a single sound

build up slowly from the rumbling ground,

before the sun uncoiled like a serpent fire,

casting into the heavens its liquid spiral

to light the world from end to end,

I felt shadows racing over bent stems,

folding living dragons into hills of stone,

sweeping luminous beings from their high thrones

into desolate abodes in the outermost waste,-

long before man rose from the mud of this place.