The Reaper

On What Remains

Inspired by the above image prompt from Nick Middaugh with the following line "And with an entrant of wicked breath, the figure shifted its fingers errant."

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The Reaper

Beneath a moon of spectral flame,
Where cliff and shadow merged the same,
An ancient scythe in silence lay,
Entombed within the mountain gray.

Its crescent edge retained a gleam
That haunted every shepherd’s dream,
Though centuries had drifted past
Like leaves before the winter blast.

The villagers who dwelt below
Still spoke of it in whispers low,
For every tale the valley kept
Declared that death itself there slept.

Old Elias, keeper of the graves,
Had heard the warnings elders gave;
Yet often on the hill he’d stand,
A lantern clasped in weathered hand.

Then came a night of bitter frost,
When stars seemed frail and nearly lost,
And through the pines there wound a breath
Drawn from the crypts of sleeping death.

The soil beneath the hillside swelled,
As though some buried heartbeat knelled;
The roots withdrew from stone and shale,
While dread awakened in the vale.

And with a breath both cold and grim,
The figure stirred from shadows dim;
Its fingers shifted, strange and errant,
Like omens dark and ill-inherent.

A grinding echoed through the land,
As ancient bone obeyed command;
The mountains groaned from deep within,
And silence settled thick as sin.

Then from the stone the scythe arose,
Amid a shroud of drifting crows;
Its silver edge caught lunar fire
And crowned the night with pale attire.

The figure wrapped its hand around
The haft half-buried in the ground,
And every shadow bent to trace
The hidden contours of its face.

It walked while forests bent aside,
And rivers stilled their silver tide;
The wolves retreated from its path
As though they sensed primordial wrath.

Yet where it passed no branch was torn,
No field laid waste, no child forlorn;
Instead, the darkness seemed to part
Like curtains drawn from some old heart.

The villagers assembled there,
With folded hands and whispered prayer,
Expecting ruin, plague, and flame,
For such was death’s enduring name.

The Reaper halted in the square,
Its hood adrift in midnight air;
Then from the darkness came a tone
As ancient as the weathered stone.

“I seek no kingdom wrought by men,
No gilded crown, no sword, no pen.
I gather only what remains
When flesh returns to dust again.”

The blade rose slowly toward the sky,
And spectral lights began to fly;
A thousand threads of gold and white
Unfurled beneath the moon’s cold light.

Each thread revealed a hidden deed,
A kindness planted like a seed:
A hungry stranger given bread,
A gentle word the grieving fed.

Then darker visions crossed the air:
Old wounds preserved through careless care,
Harsh words that lingered year by year,
And sorrows born of pride and fear.

The villagers beheld at last
The harvest of their every past,
For every heart had left a trace
No passing age could quite erase.

The Reaper lowered then the blade,
And all the spectral visions swayed.

The eastern sky grew faintly gold,
The night relinquished all its hold,
And slowly, with the coming dawn,
The ancient figure journeyed on.

Old Elias climbed the hill once more
To where the scythe had stood before,
And there, through cracks in barren stone,
A thousand lilies bright had grown.

They bloomed where nothing bloomed before,
Their roots wound deep through stone and ore,
Yet every year one flower grew
For someone whom the Reaper knew.

The villagers still climb that height
When winter yields to softer light,
And speak forgotten names aloud
Beneath the lilies’ silver shroud.

Yet each returns with furrowed brow,
For none can answer even now
Why some blooms fade before the spring,
While others flower through everything.

And when the moon is cold and high,
Old shepherds sometimes lift an eye
Toward that lonely ridge of stone…

And wonder what their own has grown.

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© 2026 Monica A. Leyva | All rights reserved.

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