the castelina

did cross the weary wandering
with all the tithe in old frail pockets
she sang like glass on guitar strings
danced on sand like skillet hot
did you hear the wailing though?
caught in calliope's grasp
a newt in a spider's web
did you hear the wailing though?

poseidon set deluge upon the world
& we moved like pauper nomads
& she sank & sat beneath the waves
to cool her ever-fiery feet
did you hear the wailing though?
brought up in constant bubbles
popped apace in dying lands
did you hear the wailing though?

soon she fades in piles of fog
all supple bounding 'cross the ocean
reborn in green & verdant fields
the cresting of the lon garram
did you hear the wailing though?
no span of years could quell her voice
anointed by the mother so--
did you hear the wailing though?

The islands comprising Lon Garram are the cradle of civilization. Those who grew from the ground in ages past, raised with the sweet guidance of Mother Ninti, The One Who Was, set north in the 1,000 Rains to escape the ire of Poseidon, who looked down at his dead world and wept until he was no more.

And so they crossed north, at first on foot, and then on great ships built by the Mages in Milawa, as the sea grew and swelled. The Mages rent the steel from the tall buildings and shaped them, scuttling the great windowed beasts of the ancients, and north the nomads sailed, pressed forward by the Word of Winds.

They ran aground on Sikirsan, where they remained, as the seas remained still, and built the great empire of Lon Garram, to stretch across the northern isles and protect the Lon Agusera from the Mountain Dwellers.

But they left her behind. The Castelina, the God-Child Anastasia, for she betrayed them in service to the Dead Gods. She sank with Poseidon and rules the Great Sea, and is only seen by the All-Mother, Ninmah.