The Wellkirk Alchemist

COPYRIGHT NOVEMBER, 1999 BY KEN BRODY

A tall stone room with candle dim,

Its spark illuminated him:

A gaunt-faced man with unkempt hair

And strange horizons in his stare.

A wooden stand, his inks and bells,

His scrolls, his alembics, his Book of Kells,

Scribed round with glyphs that seal and lock:

Tincture, spirits, oils, chalk.

Now there was no room to err;

The forces he had called were near.

In special ink he penned a sign

On parchment with a moonlight shine.

He gripped the corners, gave a shake,

The glyph flicked free, a glowing flake.

Quickly now, her poured a mix

Of solvents draws from alembics.

Vapors rose, a fog of milk.

In a bellows lined with silk

He captured it.  Lightnings flashed

Round him and the stoneworks

Groaned and clashed.

Four drams condensed in a crystal vase

Beneath a writhing silver haze.

He wiped the cold sweat from his face.

He named it “Analectic Base”.

A precious double dram he drew,

Diluted ten time ten times ten,

And sealed in amber phials again.

“Twas days and nights – he needed rest,

But kept the phials within his vest.

That eve he took his potions down 

To visit on the stricken town.

He heard sick children cough and wail,

Passed mottled corpses in travail.

A phial in each hand ,

He named the four directions, and

The guardians of the air, then threw

One uncorked phial, and up it flew.

Elixir spewed out in a veil

And people rose up, hearty, hale.

The second phial was meant for him.

He froze, at once distraught and grim.

For with the stopper halfway off,

He heard another child cough.

In his dark, bright heart of stars,

Were inky clouds and somber bars,

Where centuries of majik toil

Accumulated wear and soil.

Feverish beneath his cloak,

Each utterance a throttled croak,

He knew there was not strength nor time

To reconstruct this cure sublime.

He chose.  And with an anguished gasp

He gathered strength, renewed his grasp,

He drew the cork, he threw the phial

Toward whence the sound of sickened child.

And all at once, through all his fear,

The inky clouds and bars did clear.

Then from the dross his essence fair

Arose and mingled with the air.

For miracles, for scores of years,

The hopeless, with their ills and fears

Still came, by foot, by horse, by wheel

To Welkirk, for the winds that heal.