Beast Rider

Foot left the road
By the temperance river
Superior ringing dreams

She passed through valleys
Upon scalloped hills
Now thick as the aspen woods

Winter was short
Abnormally dry
Snowfall had been so slight

The Sun had set
Yet the journey she made
Under the Northern Lights

But the cabin wasn’t far
For a drunkard
So she followed the guide of the stars

The thaw had been early
But not a stitch of green
And the fear grew in her heart

She stumbled through the spruce
Turned a blind corner
Just shy of a cabin up the way

There it stood
Like a tall dark shadow
Bringer of her last day

Morning came
They scoured the woods
But there was neither sight nor sound

And to this day
There are no remains
A wallet is all they found

But if you listen
Between the waves
There echoes her last breath drawn

Under the northern lights
By the temperance river
She rides that beast into the dawn