Land of Sixty Four

My midnight ode to a glass chessboard:
Instructional fantasy poem depicting the basic movements of chess



Practicing magic, two queens of two lands
Had both learned blood would soon be on hands.
Both the queen of black magic and the one of white
Shrewdly spun spells throughout the night.
Spinning their spells, each called on the sands
To empower themselves and enchant their lands.

“May the peons be pawns and march ever straight;
Lest, with a slanted step forward,
they might swing their weight.
Directly South, North, East or West,
Charm the rooks' slide to the castle-site best.
Though the sidesmen, the bishops, might recant,
Let them strike with vengeance attacking aslant.”

Both kings ambitious, both filled with zeal,
The queens both limited each Head’s heel.
“May the Master master the patience of pace
by stepping only one step to any one place.”

The queens then granted themselves the right
To attack as all others throughout the fight;
(Except, that is, for the bumbling knight.)
The knights weren’t forgotten the night of the spell,
forsaken though, quite . . . they were all cursed to “ell”!

The queens still had one trick up their sleeves.
If both King and rook should want to take leave
And neither ventured from post that day
And neither bishop nor knight guarded the way . . .
They both were granted, by each Queen Mother,
A single step toward and past each other.
Two steps each for rook and King,
A little magic trick called “Castling”.

The spells were spun, enchantments cast.
The queens were ready to battle at last.
As their formations were forming, their men being prepped
As how to attack and how to step,
The three suns broke . . . brilliance piercing the sands
That swirled and twirled throughout the land;
And, because such force the queens had amassed,
Both kingdoms, their world, spun slowly to glass.