PARAGON

Demonic fury, surging river's flow,
in the cruel black cast of looming midnight
ripped by tempest; life clung dauntless below.
Rainfall pelting, stabbed with ferocious might
to vitiate her lantern's failing flame.
Numb fingers advanced with a languished pace
Across the shattered bridge about to fall.
Drowning voices the river would soon claim,
cries for mercy her mind could not erase.
The flame went out!  Night had her in its thrall...

Shards of lightening incised the path somewhat.
Resolute, she crawled, foreboding in her head;
'one misstep could bring me to my end but
to turn back now, 200 would be dead.'
Doggedly traversing o'er the rails and
Afoot upon the yonder shore attained
ran half a mile to Moingona Station,
Sounded the alarm, and impelled a band
on nigh the deterged strand that yet remained;
Where two were lost and two found salvation.

The legend of that night lives on through time
Marked with steel and iron rails on high,
And canonized through fading verse and rhyme
When Moira came to visit that July.
How a seraphic creek, once Honey sweet,
so seemingly benign but then assail
this slumbering and restful prairie dale;
mutated as a fiendish sour beast.
...Heretofore recounted the extant tale
of how fate and vicissitudes prevail.