Songbook II

[Dandeli]

.. I have had a recurring dream, where I walk from shade to shade, shadow to shadow.
The apple orchard is not my own, the sweetened gravesite of my poet.                   
                                 The trees are not my own, the leaves recoiling at my cold touch.
The birds are not my family, the butterflies fly without me.                                     

                                              My tea tastes like salt, and I have you know I stopped using sugar.                    
My song no longer feels like a salve.                                                                       
                                                        Letting that name trace your tongue feels bitter.
Seeing your grace beyond this graceless mirror feels bitter.                                   
                                                    Pottery feels like miserable piles of crumbly mud.

When did I forget how to sing?

[Dandeli]

  
Clutched in my hand, a little bottle of glass, entrusted with the simple task of cradling my thoughts.
    
For some reason, this roiling anger dissolves. Maybe it is the daffodils knit between my fingers.
Maybe it is the fact it has spent all its woe. For some reason, I believe it is quietly confounded ..
.. Watching tides retreat, tides return. What was it again? A rise to each fall. An ebb to each flow.
All I hear now is a wailing requiem. In my dreams, I hear it in the cracks between dying light ..
  
.. thrashing, kicking, weeping. It hates my voice, but perhaps I can find the right words.
    
Clutched in my hand, a little bottle of glass, slowly but surely cast to the slowly flowing sea of blue.

[Dandeli]

 

 Many years of following my heart has lead me into many moments of trouble,

 Arms lopped off to save the trove of child's dreams and wishes,                        

                      Lurking beings born of hearts uncaring tested by fire and blood,

 Sight lost for my Iris, beloved guiding light, marked by hollow failure,            

 A love found, preserved and cherished, only for me to grow scared of her,        

    And the tragic blacksmith; I had promised her a song. Yet oh, it did fall deaf,    

      Commander, my most ardent ally, I could not save you from an empty end. 

So many times tricked by the shape of a false smile, the Red Wolf's teeth.       

 Many tolls and tithes paid for following not the mind, but heart's quick beat.   

     Told to watch and cry. Told to give it up. Yet I kept moving, walking, running.   
 

Mourning, regretting, loathing. Crying, bemoaning, hiding.

  

... What did I achieve?

   

   

My best.
   

My Lady, my Songstress,                            

                          my dream did come true.

  

Every moment has mattered; after all, the bard sings not of endings,

He sings of the rolling hills, the journey beneath the cursed boughs,

The impassioned scream of the wanderer, the whispers in the night,

If my life was a song, you could chart it in a sailing symphony,

Notes of triumph, the wail of crossroads, cries, laughs,

My dream was for it to all matter,

And even in failure,
 

It has fallen
 

into place.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so, please,

 

 

 

  

  

Grant me quiet,

  

  

  

Allow me to water your flowers, even if I'm mean,                                                               

                                                                        Lay beneath the dappled light of your grove, even when I'm mad.

             After all the chiding at my stupidity, all the punishment for my lack of care,                                                                                                                          

                                                                                                                          All the well wishes so I would come home, all the concern that I would disappear,       

                  

  

   

        I will finally heed those words.          

         

  

    

to stop,             

          and rest

      

    

   

Just for a little while.

     

  

  

I want you to see something,                          

It is a song I would like you to hear, 

         

   

my Lady.

     

  

I will join you soon, after a few paces more.. 

                                   .. as your warden is destined to do.

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          .. just a few paces more.