609-615 (Wrenogal continued: The Prowler's Cargo)
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viii
And while he watched the monotonous waves
take, one by one, the Sea Prowler’s contents,
his heart-worn, ghasted eyes gave heartless graves
to buried pasts which knew no sacraments.
As if the seraph, watching from above,
commanded each to flow beside his gaze,
the dashed packings of cargoes borne thereof
demanded of the Wren his hate or praise.
Each drew unto where Wrenogal was stood
within the churning waters of his fate,
as if to ask (as if the dread man could),
‘make good our voyage, and our value sate.’
Surely the shipment of that yearslong crew
of false and dead held something live and true?
ix
First drew unto that near dead-hearted one
the quill of Taladen. And parchment sogged
beside it lost its ink, already run
into the sea, now fully waterlogged.
The poetry those lines once held now ran
throughout the racing mind of he who saw.
What could he now remember? How began
the epics that had lent their humble awe?
But gone. A few words here and there he might
recall, but never half the voice of he
who rarely ventured into broad daylight
unless the Wren or Zlyr he wished to see.
The quill will see the sea. And nevermore
will friends, its poems, pardon or ignore.
x
But Beyrg had loved his writing. He had kept
Taladen’s verses always on his lips.
Dear Taladen had often softly wept
alone when Beyrg had used his lines in scripts.
He knew well how to love. No man was not
within the reach of Beyrg’s beloved heart.
And love was not a prayer or passing thought;
but had, in all his plays, a hero’s part.
His yellow jester’s cap drifted beside
the fingertips the seaswell softly kissed.
That cap, so well to happier times tied,
would have to be forsaken, and be missed.
For Wrenogal could not now laugh with it.
And ‘trying to’ he’d not, himself, permit.
xi
A satchel now approached, which slowly spun
around, giving its contents every way,
dispersing little bundles, “made for none
and everyone”, as Melody would say.
A biscuit and an ornament they held,
an offering for any who would take,
for those who ever had been sore repelled,
and those who were the ones who could forsake.
Melody made the gifts, and gave them out
to outskirt villages, beyond the sight
of palaces, beyond the chasing shout
of fearful courtier and noble knight.
She did not fear. She gave. And now the sea
ate what the Wren’s tear-blurred eyes could not see.
xii
Naerendal owned a book he often shared
with Wrenogal, about Aeonia,
of how the Silent Seraph truly cared,
more, even, than that fae Lydoria.
Back then, the Wren had listened with an ear
that trusted much, which had no reason not
to trust the thought that angels might be near,
and had all living things witnessed, and wrought.
But now, seeing its spine bob closer, flew
across the churning shallows, scrabbling
their surface—in that book, Wrenogal knew
his plight would be there, and gods answering!
And, tense hands turning open its wet face,
he saw the sea had taken the ink’s trace.
xiii
One version of the Wren now threw the book
into the sea, that had, now, all things seized
away from heart and hand, and now partook
within its hungry depths all that once pleased.
Another version screamed into the air,
at all the light he ever had seen there,
and begged for Darkness to remove him hence,
and—better yet—his heart from all its sense.
But this one stared into the once loved book,
whose words the Seraph of the Sea now seized,
and perilously on his thoughts partook—
of memories that bleed—that once had eased.
And would have done until the Dark encroached,
when something he’d forgotten now approached.
xiv
Bumped right into his leg, Wrenogal’s lute
entreated him. A pet that wants to play.
But oceans of despair now numbly root
the paralyzed to where his bare life lay.
Almost naive. Almost—except—the bard
had taught him how to play. And Taladen
had hoped one day to have his verses barred
in music’s measures. And—had not the Wren
once heard that Melody had wished that, in
her offerings, she might, too, cheer the ear
with song? And what was it—that ancient hymn
Naerendal sang to conquer every fear?
His voice—barely his own: “then I will learn
the songs they might have sung. And then adjourn.”