Mistolin, Compassionate to the Bereaved, Hear Me
#3 of poetry
This is what I'm talking about when I say I don't seem to be able to write about love without being depressing.
He came to me when sunset filled the room.
He smelled of sweat and sweet grass, as he does.
His face was like the dark side of the clouds.
His fangs were blooded. Dirt clung on his claws.
His bruises purpled underneath his mane.
His eyes were sad, and bishop-serious.
And I was almost incoherent tired
With weariness, with wound, with wayfaring--
Though never mind that he was twice as tired--
So that it took more than a few deep breaths
Before I understood what he had asked.
"I would not ask this of you for myself,"
His eyes were sad and bishop-serious,
When have I seen them any other way?
"But I could feel you hurting, down the hall.
But I have hurt as you are hurting now.
But I have grieved as you are grieving now,
And when I hurt, and when I grieved, I was
Alone." The sunset soaking through the air
Was turning it to amber. I was caught.
"If you would grieve alone, so be it. Yet
You need not grieve alone. I could not love
Him half so much as you did. No one could.
But I loved him enough, in my own way,
To know the depths you wander even now.
If I can offer any kind of light
To lift the load of misery you bear
Let it be this: You need not be alone
With grieving." Not another word he said,
Or if he did, I did not care to hear.
He held me as the sun went down. He held
Me as I wept away the night's grim hours.
He held me wrapped in nothing but the dark.
He held me as I slept, and when I woke--
The clock was lost somewhere past two fifteen,
The moon was in the window, and his face
Was pearly hued, like light pollution snow
Under the silent streetlight ranks--he held
Me still. What nights, I thought, had he once had?
What sorrow had he wrestled till the dawn
That taught him: this is what a grief feels like,
That showed him: this is how a hurt will feel,
That scarred him: with this you must somehow live.
What tragedy had turned his eyes so sad
And bishop-serious? And he had been
Alone.
I did not ask. To this day, I know not.
He does not know I woke to find his arms
Like ward and windbreak over fallow field
Around me still. Come morning, he had gone.
Our work remained, of course, it always does.
Our foes remain, in worlds not yet outfought.
Our oaths and omens, in worlds yet unfound.
Long months passed, when I could not dare to ask
And risk bearing the pain of older wounds
When all my life a new wound was become.
Yet even this new wound begins to shrink.
It covers up my life no longer. It
Begins to dull. I dare say it grows old:
Becoming old wounds is what new wounds do.
It is not painless yet, I doubt it will
Ever be painless. But soon comes the day
When I will stand at his door, with the sun
Setting beside me. I will meet his eyes.
Mine own will be as sad, as serious.
And I will tell him, 'Now I understand.
I cannot love you as I once loved him.'
(Who could I love again as I loved him?
As well to say that someone else was him.)
'But I can thank you, if you will allow.
I do not ask this of you for myself,
But I know how the shape of grieving feels.
That I survived the learning is because
The night I learned it, I was not alone.'
What then will happen? That's for him to say.
This is no fairy tale, where happily
Is ever after, if it comes at all.
It may be I will never hear his tale.
It may be he will never read this verse.
If so, it will not matter. In his arms--
For howsoever many nights he needs--
Will you find me. And if his grief is there,
At least he will not lie with it alone.