{"sf1_id":1705589,"sf2_id":"V1YGdvmD","title":"Ballade of Three Birds","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":308,"posted_at":"2021-04-11T17:28:00.000Z","tags":["Ballade","Poetry"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1705589-ballade-of-three-birds","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/V1YGdvmD","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/0f/7a/0f7a0756-54a8-4bef-9a69-cc1fae20fc2e","description":"#25 of poetry\n\nI used to write so many ballades, you guys.\nNot ballads. Ballades, it's a specific form. Look up Francois Villon. But short version, it's a form where you have three rhymed eight line verses that all end with the same line (or half of a line, in this case,) and then a four line \"envoi\" usually addressed to someone called \"prince\" that also ends with that same line and ideally should recontextualize it.","content":"The morning miles of liquid cold that hang between the spheres  \nWill bear you up forever, but will not veil your eyes.  \nThe clear wind and the clouded and the misted wind that mirrors  \nWill show you every corner of the old hills that they clean.  \nThe scattered starlights show you what futurity will bring  \nFor only you can climb into the most transparent skies.  \nAnd when the vengeance flames consume the world beneath your wing  \nYour eyes alone will pierce the smoke, and that is what I mean.\n\nThe shadowed miles of thunderstruck that dog your silent path  \nWill rain percussive fury down, but will not muss your plumes.  \nAnd you will be the herald and historian of wrath  \nFor you alone have ridden it, and watched it intervene.  \nThe hurricane ineffable is hidden least to you,  \nHave you not seen it banish ever necromantic fumes?  \nWhen towers tremble with the chaff, your memory is true.  \nAt least you'll know why I was here, and that is what I mean.\n\nThe trailing miles of ivy grey that drag upon the oak  \nWill camouflage your ashen clothes, but not your promised song.  \nBehind the bare of leaves there lives what every singer spoke,  \nSo if the boughs, like you, are black, your voice can grow them green.  \nTen hundred tunes combine in you at every note you call.  \nTen thousand songwrights live again, so therefore live you long.  \nThen when the ivy crumbles down, and all my anthems fall,  \nOne singer will remember me, and that is what I mean.\n\nPrince of the earthbound multitudes that see clouds from below,  \nYour wearied world is windless still, and that is what I've seen.  \nThe tempest times will tear it down, and that is what I know.  \nAnd you will find your voice again, and that is what I mean.\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1705582-autumn-interrupts.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1705594-scattered-thundershowers-this-afternoon.json"}}