Photo by Himesh Kumar Behera. Creative Commons.
Years have been lost in the effort to decipher
the language of my heart.
Crews of men have vanished in expeditions to its poles
without so much as a m'aidez.
Here, the rivers run both ways at once
and their currents pull travelers to the bottom.
All the roads bear the same name, whose
meaning was lost long ago.
Those who have survived its storms and intense heat
now take shelter under withering boughs.
Search parties are fruitless; the land poses
more riddles than it solves.
And the drawbridges must be rebuilt by hand each time
a new traveler enters the kingdom.