The first dream, I merely heard it…a ghost of a song, a cadaverous keening that eerily rung among the reeds…taking care that my wet footsteps made no disturbance….

 

…The second dream, I set my eyes upon it…mist-enshrouded, resplendently crowned, tangibly spectral…through the reeds the beast was gutting a fish, his fluent-flowing plume mingling with the mist…I knew he was aware of me…

 

The third dream…I maundered through that marshland mist for what felt like hours, searching…no sound…I found the beast dead on a islet beneath the hunched silhouette of a weeping willow…Marigolds, Iris, Crowfoot and Cuckoo Flowers had sprouted from it’s wraithlike body…

 

Sometimes I swear I can hear that same phantom song…on those days when the mist falls upon the land...