{"sf1_id":1697828,"sf2_id":"pnGNyAgm","title":"Thoughts Chelonian: a poem","author":"Altivo","words":203,"posted_at":"2021-03-21T15:40:00.000Z","tags":["No-Yiff","Poetry","Tortoise","Turtle"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1697828-thoughts-chelonian-a-poem","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/pnGNyAgm","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/de/b1/deb19ee3-3991-4bdf-8578-95cf7f02fe9e","description":"This is a poem about growing old, from the perspective of an ancient tortoise, and in her voice. I was thinking about Terry Pratchett's A'tuin, the giant space tortoise who carries four elephants upon his back who in their turn hold up the Discworld.\nFirst published in Civilized Beasts, vol. 2 (Weasel Press, 2017.)","content":" **Thoughts Chelonian**  \n_by Altivo Overo (copyright 2017)_\n\nTen hundred hundred times the wandering sun  \nHas darkened, vanished without trace, returned;  \nAnd though my time grows short at least I know  \nMy life is writ in arcane symbols turned  \nInto th'enspiraled patterns of my shell.  \nO strangely graven Carapace, speak thou well.  \n\nThat hasty, wastrel, upstart race called Man,  \nWith life so short as just a single gasp,  \nDespoils the honest earth, the sea, the sky.  \nPoisons all the world as might an asp  \nOn whom have carelessly trodden all,  \nSo thus from whom the bitter end will fall.\n\nWe, the shell-locked tortoises, survived  \nMuch longer, watching, keeping without fail  \nUpon our shells the twisting lines that speak  \nA long unfolding, slow, and bitter tale.  \nIt tells an ageless story and the fate  \nOf all who would themselves be named as great.\n\nThe universe moves on, that writing says  \nAnd pauses not to hear a muttered spell,  \nNor listens ever to a desperate cry,  \nNor heeds the solemn death bell's knell.  \nYet in the starlight, graven 'pon a shell,  \nThe ancient history is told full well.\n\nA life lived ever slowly, one lived fast,  \nAre both ere long just doomed to be the past.\n\n  \n  \n\n"}