The Nymph

Today is a hard day indeed, for our route leads us over a high mountain. We pass beneath cliffs ever-moving, and scale slopes ever-sliding. By the time we make the mountain’s peak, scrapes and callouses pockmark our limbs.

And yet there, on that chilly summit, we are also stupefied by beauty: a high mountain spring, bubbling from white stone. In its pale waters bathes a nymph, her skin black as obsidian, her hair like fresh-fallen snow. More sublime than any statue, she welcomes us to her grotto with silent, open arms.

We linger beside her waters for what feel like hours — although in truth, they cannot be more than seconds. Then, in the blink of an eye, the nymph is gone. A peace overcomes us as we descend the mountain’s far side.