Oh, The Way that Kings Go

This is a work in progress, and I will be editing it over the next month or so. I am planning to attend the Boston signing for Brandon Sanderson's Shadows of Self tour (Mistborn #5), and I hope to give him a Seussically illustrated hardcopy of this Stormlight Archive tribute.

One spren, two spren,

Lie spren, truth spren.

Are those blue spren truly glue spren?
This one makes a skyeel fly,

That one shows up when you die.

Oh what a lot of spren I spy!

You have light in your spheres, You have shards in your hand,

You have surges to help you to fly and to land!

So where will you go?  Somewhere high? Somewhere low?

To the great Reshi Isles, or somewhere with snow?

Perhaps you will dine on some Horneater Stew,

Delivered directly through Urithiru.

Or maybe the Shin will sell you a chicken

(eating it helps Thaylen eyebrows to thicken).

There’s so many places and people and spren,

It’s easy to wonder just where your path ends.

But please, don’t forget, it’s the way that you walk

that matters much more than the place that you stop.

Yes, the road that you take, whether straight, curved, or bendy

always matters the most—just ask the Parshendi.


___
Less complete stanzas, may not be included:

I looked and I saw him step onto the wall.

I looked and I said, "Now, why don't you fall?

The ground should be down!" and I said it with feeling.

He smiled and simply stepped onto the ceiling.

Look at this place all broken and cracked,

Those bones that are scattered, those stones that are stacked.

It started way back on the night of the feast,

And now they have been here for six years at least.

They all came down south to have a big fight

All because of the man who wore white.

The place where you think is an odd sort of spot

Where you're likely to meet all the things ever thought.

Some things are backward and some upside down

In this place where your thoughts live in cities and towns,

Where ideas you've had and things that you've known

Have taken on life if their own--and then grown!

Shadows go backwards and seas become land

 and the land gets replaced by an ocean of sand

 And each little grain holds a glimmer of light 

that makes sure something out in the real world looks right.