The Wanderer
| Taliesin Wordweaver |
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The green of growth has grasped the woods,
and raindrops wrinkle the puddles in rings. A dreaming droplet shakes in a draft, barely balanced between bough and air, a whisper of wind away from the fall. Earth and Ocean are equal before fate. No matter my movements, memories follow me of hearth and home, of joyous halls, songs at sunset that soared to the stars and footsteps and faces whom fate has bereft me. But winter winds have withered to dust my love of life, and left me a shell frail and frightened, frozen in place. My wayward will is rendered to weak to burst the bonds now binding me tight. I walked the world once, careless and wild, ready to render a bladed reckoning and avenge with violence slighted virtues. I murdered the men who dared to mock me. What worth the works of youthful whimsy? What worth the words of white-haired age? They fail and fold like falling leaves, fated to fade when first a bud. The dawn is dull now, dead and colorless, drowned in the drab-hued dregs of night. I laid my lord to rest in the loam where barley once bent, and snakes now bask. Where gledes once glowed, frost now glitters. No footsteps fall in the feasting hall, no songs now soar to the silver stars like sparks to sparks, chanted spells that shimmered where shadows now shiver in silence. Little lingers in this fleeting life. I give the gift of good advice: Be not fast to fury, nor overly fearful, nor spurious in speech, nor spellbound to memory. Cling not to clay, nor cloister your heart; Sorrow, like silt, settles but slowly. Act not in anger, though woe makes you ache. The river of rage is too readily loosed, mashing in moments one’s thoughts to mud. Vows of vengeance, seeds of violence, make rending roots that reach too deep in the ashen earth, unyielding anchors. Shatter these shoots when first they unsheathe their leaves from the loam. They will strangle your life. I yield to the years. No more do I yearn to prolong this life: I take my leave. My song is sung, the serpent has struck, my heavy heart is hardened with poison. No more remains of yesterday's magic, my soul is suffocated by bitter silence. I give the gift of golden memory to the wasting winds of wayward fate. (Inspired by the Anglo-Saxon poem of the same name:) (http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=wdr) |
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