Thunderborn

Born in the blaze of dying thunder,
And reared by lightning under the moon,
I linger here in the heart of dying wonder,
And wonder if part of me, too, shall die soon.

Delicacy has been my function and form,
Swift and brilliant as the leaping lightning,
To remind the world of the power of the storm,
When the storm cannot the world be brightening.

But I, born of the storm, born of thunder,
Have learned to love sunlight, and to love calm.
I have permitted love me from magic to sunder,
For there is magic only in the thunder's psalm.

I have lingered here long past the turning,
And now this is a world that no room any more
Holds for those born in thunder's first burning,
Holds no room for those who love magic sore.

I may not love magic, and yet I am magic.
I am the voice that cries out in the night.
I am the one who the high and the tragic
Chants to counterpoint the birds in the light.

A power of the darkness who loves the light-
The paradox that should have destroyed me long ago.
But still I linger, and look out from midnight,
When stars are throwing brilliance on ground below.

I am invisible, but that means that I am here.
Such things were never meant to be seen by life.
Over time light and darkness in a struggle drear
Have been locked, and only recently has strife

Given way to the peace that now wraps the world.
The darkness did not give up, but it died.
It could not deal with the thunderbolt hurled
By those humans who remained ignorant of either side.

They chose the light without ever realizing
What they chose, when they chose to regard fact
As lord above dark dreams, above materializing
Creatures in the darkness. And that was that.

The creatures of light do not swim in light itself.
Their sea is science, which can be learned more
Than the magic of darkness, the road of fay and elf,
The things that can only be seen and yearned for.

They did not kill magic on purpose, but it dies,
And in the places where unicorns once pranced
Come the human footsteps. Through the blue skies
There ride the planes where once dragons danced.

The light has won, through a blow struck unknowing.
It flourishes and grows stronger day by day. 
Ever like the plants that in the sunlight love growing,
It flourishes, and weeds chase the belladonna away.

Most of my companions are gone, or they are dead,
Those that lingered here too long, with a belief tragic:
That they could find refuge within the human head,
That they could find in imagination a belief in magic.

When we consign our existences to a human's belief,
Then we deserve anything that afterwards befalls.
Because they killed us is no reason to give them grief,
But we should not seek in our killers' minds home and halls.

I love this world, as I have said and said before.
Then why do I linger here? Why do I not leave?
It has chosen to forget my kith and kin forevermore.
Why make the world that I love so grieve?

I am ancient, though, this child of storm's power,
And though it took me some little time to remember,
I remembered before that I have seen the light flower,
And then from the rose-blossom sink to an ember.

This is the worst defeat, and it has stained black
Our memories and our power, so that we flee.
But though the darkness is always knocked on its back,
It always rises again, and magic comes back to be.

No victory of the light can possibly be forever,
And this time it has achieved it through the weakest of tools:
The minds of mortals, who do not live, who never
Remember that the darkness creeps back when the fire cools.

We have always been here because we belong here.
This is no war, really, or not a human-mortal one.
It is something that will never have a victory clear,
Unless the world is devoured by us instead of the sun.

They have won no victory. In the end all things die,
Save the ones who lie, like me, immortal and in wait.
The light has allowed the humans to tame it, and to tie
It to thinking like they do; though they never forget hate,

They will forget the very concept of immortal life.
We will wait here, in the darkness, and never grow weary.
The magic waits with us, to renew the long strife.
When civilization passes in the end with a farewell teary,

There will be unicorns to dance on the grass,
And there will be dragons to fly over the metal ruins.
The phoenix again will be the sun's looking-glass,
And magic will float and fly from beyond the moons.

And that is why, though I love the world, I do not accede
To the "decision" the humans have made, the "choice."
I will wait here, and grow old, and in the end succeed.
This world I love speaks not with a human voice.