Legends of the light and dark

A clear pool in an Elvin glade

Trunks rising around it upward into boughs

Reflecting through the shadows of the afternoon

The sky and branches spread over quiet water

I think most hearts cry with fear and wonder

That they have been forsaken

While feelings listen after a moment

And consider if life has buried them

Often loves and hates grow untrimmed

And all days are doomed to failing

Ideas rise along the way

But become no more than feathers

In the afternoon sun the trees are still

And white lilies dot the water

Water gliders dash among the pads

Leaving ripples that scatter after

The wise ladies of the wood and I

Found moments to make love

No other time so perfect,

So close to being free

Afterwards ghastly wounds of war

Less glimpsed are muted and softened

And I wish that I could bear them less

For a few hours more or until I sleep

Paths don’t abut the pool’s edge

Only bushes and bits of bark from trees

Lie upon the moss and grass

On the sides close to the water

Frogs devour aquatic mites, watching

Those scoot about from sites near the bank

And carp often eat the frogs

Also watching but from beneath the lilies

For all my life I have ridden to war

And now every whisper stinks of death

I cannot see any more of life’s horizons

Only forests of spears

While I am fixed as what I am

And I am grim and seem

As twisted and cruel as requirements

Show an answering need to be

Saul Scudder

December 2003