My heart leapt at that distant knell,
the peal of some somber bell,
dissonant with the vulture’s hiss,
“He is gazing in the Wishing Well!”
Where the watcher struck, I could not tell.
What sense or sound of man could pierce
oppression as sat upon that dell?
Still, my heart trembled with that distant knell!
My earthly desires I sought to quell.
She had said, “One sip will grant your wish!”
From the edge I took a shard of white shell
and strove to draw from the Wishing Well.
Was it the depth or that charnel smell?
As I drew close, I saw the fragmented skulls!
My senses failed and headlong I fell
– conscious only of that distant knell.
Despair echoed back my pitiful yell.
For what sense or sound of man could rise
from the depths of that immemorial hell?
From the poisonous waters of the Wishing Well?
My heart slowed with that fading knell,
the peal of that somber bell,
staring up at the filigreed sky,
conscious only of the vulture’s hiss,
“He drank from the Wishing Well!”
Poetry by Adam Nevarez 