Climbing Arthur's Seat (Into the Tearing Wind)

A looming mound of sharp turf-covered stones rises,
sharp like the chill that races up my spine, sharp like the biting
breeze that cuts through my coat like a blade.
This mound is an island amidst Edinburgh’s crowded streets.
Here atop this mound, this island, the hands of time sit still.
Here soft comes the rain, and tearing comes the wind.

Fortress walls have crumbled. Kings have passed away.
The earth is old, but the air is young,
still young as it was the day the world was made.
That air, that fierce young wind tears the words from my mouth,
carries my voice over the evergreen grass of Caledonia, over the seat of kings
where soft comes the rain, and tearing comes the wind.

Mason’s stones lie scattered upon this aged mound,
towers toppled, walls crumbled, the fort destroyed beyond recognition.
Yet I cannot help but wonder what they once were,
what sort of men stood at arms atop them in the same soft rain,
and what sort of voices spoke, voices whose words were torn from their mouths,
like mine, bourn away and still carried by this same ever-young, tearing wind.

The highland gale cries, it screams long, loud, and clear,
a wind fresher, a wind greener than the grass that grows
upon this aged mound of rock and earth. Voices in the air whisper
below the gale’s keen, asking almost altogether unheard,
“Was this the throne where the Bear of Britain sat? Was this Pendragon’s roost?
Was this where warriors feasted? Peerless Cai, bold Bedwyr, and the rest?”

Soft comes the rain; tearing comes the wind.
I know my mind is filled with too much romance,
with men who likely never lived outside the songs the poets sing.
But those words, those songs, those voices still resound in me,
playing upon my heartstrings like Taliesin played upon his harp,
Like Merlin’s magic that seems to play upon my immortal soul.

Soft comes the rain; tearing comes the wind,
stirring some sleeping soldier in my soul that longs for battle, beasts, and blades,
that needs to feel the same rough, caressing wind that blew the banners of kings.
Like bottled thunder, my sharp, rolling laughter bursts out.
Blade-like and biting, it cuts through the squall’s scream,
and my labored climb turns to a run at breakneck speed.

Into the tearing wind I step, into the tearing wind,
trying to steal a kiss from a hurricane, to feel the embrace of the rain,
to find seat at top of the world, to hear the words on the wind.
This the eye. This is the sacred centre of the storm of this world’s realm.
This where the shackles of time fall, broken, to the ground.
This is where the stories end, where memory begins.