Time upon a once
The Earth in heated splendor lay
In the long, long Spring time of it's beginnings.
The Sun King in His castle ruled
And the crops and hunting forests thrived.

One day the King chose the form of a lion
To prowl His good Earth and cull
The weak and ready aged from the herds
Of bouncing springbok which were filling the plains

As his long day of stalk and pounce
Came to its satiated close
He heard the sound of a beautiful reed flute
Sighing a sad song in the North of the twilight.

His heart darkened ever so slightly with longing
For that sweet melody, the reed flute and the distance
He was the Sun King, after all
And there was no darkness, not even his own, he could not illumine

And so, He set His lion-striding way a-North
Seeking the sound of that aching flute
Following the tune of longing towards it's source
The song became loneliness
The song became hunger
The song became desire
     For contrast, and difference, and harmony, and diversity
     And … and … and …
                                         … beauty.

He came to a secret mountain tarn
And seated on a moonlight islet
Was a lovely white leopard maid
Playing the reed flute to the reflected ripples of stars

She was His desire
She was His loneliness and hunger
And in his hard lust of beaming
He brightened the tarn in the bluster and hope of His arrival

Well, you know THAT story
She fled from the light that would fill Her darkness
     That would unmake Her
     That would define Her in His terms.
She fled
She fled fast as thought and as far as imagination

And He was left
      Rejected
As no Sun King had ever been rejected.
He returned to his castle and brooded.
Leaves fell because he did not beam as strong
And the World became a little colder.

At last He resolved to seek the white leopard
At last He healed enough maybe to compromise
At last He set out again to seek the sweet sound of a reed flute

He started at the tarn and spiraled outward
He walked slowly and silently, straining after the hope of sound
He stalked Her as He had ever stalked His prey
He had never failed before
He did now

The spiral of His path wound to the opposite end of the Earth
And yet he never found a single whiff of scent
Nor heard one note of that plaintive flute
Beat and weary he returned to the tarn
The sad site of his one and only loss

He pulled Himself into Himself
The World darkened and seemed in many ways to die
He closed his eyes and a single tear
      Fell
           From the cheek of the Sun King
Transformed into a strange, wonderful six-armed crystal
And lit upon the surface of the water
And the water became ice
And His breath became clouds of true sorrow
And, yes, in that moment
      He heard once again the dark beauty of a reed flute.