Welcome to my blog, brought into existence because I believe in the power of stories. I hope you'll find a few things you like here. Let me know what you think and leave me any verdict, suggestion, challenge or request you want.
She cried after it, but it kept speeding up. Not once taking her eyes of the curious birdie, she chased it across a meadow full of fragrant flowers. The little bonnet slid from her head and unleashed a wild abundance curls. Running and crawling through the field, her fancy black varnished shoes slipped off in the high grass and green smudges formed on her freshly-washed Sunday dress. Smeared with grass and dirt, the child ran as fast as her bare feet could carry her and reached for the creature. Finally, she managed to poke it with a fingertip and startled. It was so warm.
On a Sunday stroll through the park, an exuberant young lass finds herself drawn into the Land of the Fairies.
In this world of magic, Macy is swept up in an epic quest that will determine the fates of the fairy world as well as her own.
On this journey, she and her friends will have to pass numerous tests and discover as well as surpass their own limits in order to literally save the day.
I paced around the empty room. The lights were out, a pale ghostly shine falling from the hall through the open door. It made the chairs into faded silhouettes. It was quiet. Unusually quiet. Normally at this hour, student-musicians were practicing their symphonies in the adjacent music rooms, which is my I even bother coming here in the first place, but not today. I turned to the shadows of the corner. The piano stood abandoned but with dignity in its smooth blackness. I caressed its keys longingly. Such a pity I never learned.
I ambled on, a final glance at the Steinway, in between the desk, the surface was dusty, and the blackboard, going over the lecture words forgotten on the canvas and lost in the green wilderness that was empty. ‘Antigone’ it said, with proud, hastily crooked letters, the first almost entirely wiped out by the lecturer’s fervent hand. Must have been interesting.
A glimmer in the dark caught my eye, next to the control panel for the auditory on the floor. It must’ve been a piece of equipment one of the students broke, a wire of sorts. I passed it, stopped, passed it again, retraced my steps and picked it up. It was an earring of coal with all the glimmer of diamonds, four ovals full of facets piled on top of each other, the lower always bigger than the next. I brought it up to the light of the hall and watched it sparkle.
And then stepped forward from the dark a creature fair with grace and ease. Emanating danger like a flame I was strapped to the wings of moths, unable to fly. She stood patiently, invitingly and smiled.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice an echo that seemed strange to me in the void.
She smiled benignly and stepped closer.
“My name?” She said with a melodic voice that ringed with something foreign, a tone I’d only heard before in dreams of spring and dew and fairy bells. She strode elegantly around me in a circle and whispered in my ear. It made my head light and empty and filled it instead with the fragrance of midnight flowers and dewed green. “Most call me Luna.” She traced a finger along my shoulder bones and let out an amused chuckle. I slipped into the touch complacently and watched her every step. “Others Artemis, Diana, Hekate,...” She took a step back suggesting infinity with the mere casualness of her nimble lily hand. “I have so many names.” She smirked. “None really matter.”
With a melancholy expression, she slid through the shadows shining bright like the moon, a radiant beauty of silver shackled to the earth and doomed to forever more mourn the loss of flight, her crippled hoary wings hanging limp over her long snow-white gown of Greek folding. She returned my stare with a knowing smile, shrouding in mystery like she knew of some secret by grace of which she held me ensnared. And she did. I stood motionless, powerless, eagerly taking it all in. She threw me a predatory gaze, pleased like a kitten with her catch.
It felt as though there was no roof, no walls, only earth, water and sky overhead, a distant scent of sultry fire smouldering and suddenly the empty chairs were like the forest, the trees from which they came, and the night a deeper, thicker black than I had ever seen before.
She held out her hand. I returned the earring to her. She beamed graciously.
“Tell me, my sun-kissed child, have you ever wondered what it would feel like to catch the moon in your bare hands?” She said in that magnetic tone of hers and beckoned. I hesitated, but to her nodding encouragement, I rushed ahead and stepped eagerly into her embrace, content to perish in her arms. She gave a kiss so powerful it could rip a life away and licked the blood that oozed from my lips and left the taste of magic.
Then in a flash of bluish pure white light, the world had disappeared.
Author’s note
Goal: I trying to master a certain type of writing that’ll be important in later parts of the Svart-cycle, heavy on mood, touch and insinuation, something sultry and at the verge of being passionate.
In fact, I think I’m going to add this one as a dream (that can be attributed both to Darius and Alice) in that cycle (which is why I labelled it ‘episode’), I just don’t know what the best place to fit it in is yet. Most likely after the next episode.
Anecdote about the coming to be of this story
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned!
(no, I’m not that religious, and yes, I just stole that from ‘Coyote Ugly’)
I’ve stolen things before, sometimes for no urgent or apparent reason and often with no or little trace of remorse afterwards, but now it finally happened; for the first time, I committed theft for Art.
It isn’t quite that spectacular, especially not after how I made it sound in the introduction; last night I had some time before the next bus home. There’s an auditory I like to go to at times like that, I don’t really know why, probably out of nostalgia and to look for inspiration (there usually are musicians playing music that I’ve never heard before, and that you never hear on the radio, which is like the Fort Knox of inspiration for me). Anyway, the part of the story up to the picking up of earring, I just plucked out of my own experience. I picked the thing up and put on the table, so the owner would find it there the next day. However, I paced over and over, picked it up again, laid it back, scribbled some notes for the story, picked it up again... It just wouldn’t let me go and I felt like I needed to have it with me for the story. Having lost stuff before myself however, I kind of sympathise with whoever’s missing it. But, when it was time to go and I was at the door, I couldn’t go, so I went back, snatched the thing up and then I actually took it with me. It’s here next to me on the table right now as I’m typing this. I know, I KNOW, I feel horrible...
Anyway, in my defence, I do intend to put it back first thing on Monday though. Or after the book (but that would mean never...). So my intention was just to borrow rather than steal it from the start.
So, let’s make this thing interactive; what’s the worst thing you ever did for Art (or some other important Goal)? I’d love to know, please leave a relevant comment below.
(I’ll try to add a picture of the legendary earring. I suppose it’s rather plain in itself, but still, the way I found it, glimmering in complete darkness and all, it was just gripping)
There was a rumble in the distance, an earthquake or a thunderstorm. It made the ground below them quiver.
“What’s that?” Michael asked panicky.
“I don’t know.” She replied thoughtful, a sense of worry encroaching on her. It would not go away. “Are you going to be okay?” He nodded. She handed him over to another friend to support him. “You guys go straight home, alright?”
She turned around.
“Wait, where are you going?” He pulled her back.
She looked at him briefly and turned in the direction of the Order headquarters. “I have to go somewhere, check on something.” She hoped so desperately that she was wrong.
“Alice!” He cried after her. She ran off, into the darkness.
Just a block away from the club a desolate ghost world began. A blooming part of town just a few hours before, now had more likeness to a post-war wasteland. No lanterns were lit, a few flickered and went out with a pop. It sent shivers down her spine. The streets were empty, the shops deserted. They showed signs of struggle. Trash cans were kicked over, their insides spilled across the sidewalks, a few doors hung wobbly from their hinges, cars were scratched and dented, the shoes of their yanked out drivers left behind on the road. Something crunched. She looked down at the broken glass from cracked windows beneath her feet. Svarts raided here as well.
She strode through the lane, on her guard, the only sounds her own. Her heels were too loud on the pavement and her feet were killing her. She took the shoes off and tiptoed crouching through the streets barefoot – carefully across the debris – clinging to the walls and staying in the shadows. She bit her lip. A squadron of Svart troops passed by, she pressed against the damp side of a corner and held her breath, waiting for them to march on and rubbing a hand over her queasy stomach. She had a bad feeling.
They stamped on in rows of two, blabbering and laughing, the sound of their military boots trapped, echoing back and forth between the high brick walls of the alley. What were they up to? And why hadn’t she met a single knight around? Where were the others?
Once they were gone, she crossed the street and looked around the bend. All clear. Nervously, she broke into a sprint.
There it was, the street. She slowed down, coughing. The air was thick with dust, everything was grey and it was so unusually, so deafeningly quiet and empty. And then she saw it.
With a sigh as if her last breath was squeezed out of her, she sunk to the ground. She’d been right. It had happened. Before her lay the pile of rubble that was once their tall, proud office.
She got up and plummeted headfirst into the smouldering wreckage. A few bits of wall were still upright, their characteristic iron bars sticking out like fish-bones.
“No!” On her knees she clawed into the ruins to look for life, for bodies, anything among the ash and stone, but two arms clenched firmly around her. She pushed him away. “Let go, we have to...”
“Alice, don’t!” A soft voice whispered, resolutely helping her up. “You can’t help them, it’s too late.”
She looked at him, in tears, exasperated. “Uncle, what happened?”
He held her close. “The building, they blew it up, my child.”
She struggled against him to go back, but he wouldn’t let her. “No, Alice, it’s not safe.” There was a distant thudding on the ground, she paid it no mind. “We have to go, they’re coming.”
She looked in the direction of the marching sound. “I don’t care. Some may have survived. We have to get them out.”
He clenched her wrists and made her look at him as he articulated the words carefully. “None survived, Alice.” He pulled his hair with a frustrated wave of his hand. “The collapse was just a cover-up, they gassed them first, there was a leak and...” He puffed. “No one even noticed what was happening.” He scuffed his foot over the concrete, unable to look her in the eyes. “I was just outside in the garden, I saw the whole thing through the glass door. Once it got through to me what was wrong, I rushed in, but it was already too late.”
“No! No!” She moaned, pulling her hair.
“Alice, please, we have to leave.” He said desperately. “If they spot us...”
“No, no, I won’t go.” She wiggled around for a way out of his grasp and back into the rubble, but he tightened his grip. He dragged her back into an alley and clasped his hand firmly over her mouth and his arm around her waist. She struggled like crazy and uttered suppressed screams, but he did not let go.
“Shht!” He whispered in her ear. “Be quiet. They can’t find us. You owe them that.”
She calmed down and nodded, so incredibly tired and so she hung limp in his grasp, watching through dulled eyes with tears pouring down as a dozen of the Svart task force went through the rubbish. They were looking for something, kicking rocks aside like it mattered nothing, be it stone or flesh.
“Captain!” One of them cried. Three of his companions rushed in to help and they shoved boulders until one pulled out the prize from its unbreakable titanium container in the ground where the front desk had been.
“The security system.” She whispered. “What do they want with that?”
Author's note: hi there, hope you're enjoying the novel. I know I sure love writing it. However, there might be slow progression with the project for the next month or so. The last weeks have been terribly busy, next week will be worse and after that, it's examination time again till end of July, and you probably know how that turned out last time... Yes, disastrous. So, be warned. It's very frustrating, because now I have to delay getting Alice to the point and place where it really starts getting exciting, I'm anxious to get there, which results in not rewriting each separate chapter for a hundred times over before posting. Sorry.
She nipped her drink by the bar and watched the others dancing. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something made her feel very nervous. Maybe it was just that she could not shake the truth. She was the only one around who knew what was going on, what was going to happen, that everyone in the club was really in danger.
She held onto the bar to steady herself against the upcoming faintness and took a deep breath.
“Come on, girl.” She muttered to herself, downing the drink in one gulp. “You can do this. Just think of it as a game.” Looking back, her friend Michael was waving at her, motioning to come back already. She forced her lips into a convincing smile and set her foot forward to make her way back to her group on the dance floor.
Then a loud noise drowned out the music and froze her in her tracks. The sturdy door caved in. A squad of soldiers in all black suits, helmets and machine guns stormed through the gaping hole screaming ‘move, move!’
The DJ stopped playing, people stepped aside. She stumbled back into the bar. The place had a reputation for drug dealing, was it a raid?
They fired five warning shots in the dark, they lit up and echoed loud through the silence. This wasn’t a raid. Glass breaking, people screaming, scattering into the corners, tugging at each other and the horrible sound of so many heavy boots stamping along the floor after them. “Everybody out!” The commander yelled and they went about grabbing at arms, shoulders, elbows, pulling at hair and motioning the guests onward with their guns. Alice saw one haul Michael over the floor, thick with broken glass, by his clothes and rushed to help him.
“You’re hurting him!” She prised the man’s claw open, allowing Michael to scramble up, rubbing his sores. The soldier pushed her away so hard she fell backwards and took off his helmet. As soon as she saw his curiously gleaming eyes, she knew this wasn’t a raid but an invasion. They were Svarts. She gasped.
“Go home!” He spat at her and clutched the next victim. Michael helped her up.
“Michael, you’re limping.”
“It’s nothing, let’s just get out of here.”
Leaning on each other, they got out. The streets were full of Svart troops, going door to door in public places, hurling everybody out.
“What the hell are they doing?” Michael asked her, coughing.
Alice watched them for a moment. As it turned out, they hadn’t paused. Either that, or enough of them were already here in the first place. They had been fooled. “Establishing a curfew.” She said, feeling as if all life had drained out of her. “They’re taking over the city.” She looked up at the horizon. It would be many hours until the break of day. She should go look for the other knights and round them up for battle.
With a sigh, she whispered to herself. “So it begins.”
And that was the day they invaded our world.
(video that has a lot of screaming in it, but parts of it might give you a good idea of what is going on in this episode, so it is kind of appropriate and may have influenced this part of the story in a latent fashion)
Progress Report (not really relevant, if you're just here for the story, please skip to 'read more' at the bottom of the page ;) )
Here's the next part, which comes immediately after episode 2 (since now I know where to start with it all it's a bit easier to be more coherent, for the time being). Sorry this had some delay. I was nearly finished last weekend, and then my computer shut down suddenly and the whole Svart file had DISAPPEARED... That's like a writer's worst nightmare. Strangely, once I got over the shock and saw clearly, I realized it wasn't that bad and I got to see my personal calamity as a blessing in disguise. I was really spinning the chapter out too long, getting carried away and just basically messing everything up, so being forced to start over entirely was the best thing that could happen - I don't really have the heart to 'kill my darlings', I guess my comuter felt sorry and decided to do it for me. That part did get better, I think, more concise (which isn't really my thing, unfortunately, I could take some classes on brevity). AND, it's also a case of Serendipity (always wanted to use that word) since thanks to Bagle's handy tips on file recovery (thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!), I found a back-up of 9 out of 12 pages of a book I was working on just before I joined Blogger. The file got corrupted very badly, so I couldn't open it and I still haven't been able to gather up the strength to start over, since it would never be the same and didn't feel it needed improvement like Svart did. So it just sucked. But now I have the crucial parts back and can pick up where I left off anytime :). I'd post some of it, but it's in Dutch, so, sorry...
And after that, I got sick and I was exhausted for a couple of days after school work, so I couldn't find the strength to write, specially since it meant starting over from scratch (luckily I'd already posted the first chapter, so I at least had a backup of that one). Instead, I did quite some fairy research, some useful stuff turned up which I hope to integrated in future parts (though most of it was suitable for Macy's world rather than Alice's and some of me just confused me or confronted me with my own lack of originality where I thought I WAS being original, which sucks).
Anyway, here is part 2 and part 3 is also done - it on the short side through, 2,5 pages - I'll schedule it for some time next week. Probably Wednesday. I do have to say I'm not entirely okay with this part and the next one yet, but there sort of a rough outline, a first draft. I'm just trying to get from point A to B as fast as possible and then I'll see from there when I'm done so I can rewrite it in the end. Oh, and the titles are pretty random now. The themes they refer to aren't always there yet or emphasized enough. I may call the novel '(The) Nightingale. Chronicles of a revolution' or something like that.
On a more cheerful note, I noticed that readership for the blod - followers but especially page views - have rocketed *dances around like a retard yelling 'whoohoo!'*, so I just want to give a big welcome to all of you who are a new and another big thank you for sticking with me despite all the craziness and irregularity lately to all the regulars. I really appreciate having you guys here giving me advice, I really really really do. I know I haven't been responding to all comments, but I will in due time. Circumstances are making it hard enough to keep up with posting the best I can, so I kind of have to 'eliminate' everything else.
Another novel start, it is getting hard to keep up. I don’t know where to place this exactly, but it may very well be the start of the episode cycle. It is meant to be a little mysterious and vague. It is the onset of a novel, after all, so it has to keep you guessing at the whole story. Song that brought this writing spree on:
I heard it again and got flashes of scenes like this, the other ‘episode’ bits and other parts I didn’t know about before. Hope you enjoy it ;)
This is actually the novel I was working on when I joined Blogger, but my skills weren't/aren't enough to complete it. It is set in what I now believe is the Western Kingdom, counterpart of the Eastern Kingdom where my cycle about the three brothers was set (It's in the story list for those who don't know it and got curious ;)). Anyway, it was always my intention to make a short story version for children out of the first chapters and I did. I actually finished it hoping I could give it to Matthew Funk, who has an awesome fundraising project to help the survivors of the Japanese indescribable catastrophe;fairytales for Japan, but I haven't heard back from him and I'm not very patient with not publishing something finished. It's a vice, I know, can't help it.
The story is suitable for all ages, but targeted at children, so I'd appreciate any feedback on whether or not you'd tell this to your (future) children, so I can mend it where needed. I hope to post it on another blog - still in progress - for kids.
And sorry if I'm being terribly slow to respond lately, it's been awfully busy. I really need a break... (from life, so I can finally get my stuff finished and catch up on things that are important).
Author’s note:some of you may already know this story – I posted it quite some time ago on HubPages, so I’ll probably get sanctioned for double-publishing – but despite having posted a link in the list page, there wasn’t too much inter-traffic between this blog and my hubs account, so I’ll post the story here as well for all of you to read. Especially since it’s been so long since I’ve posted something non-poetic (though I did write a lot… Don’t ask, it’s complicated). This is a clear example of what I (and other people?) call ‘21st century romanticism’, which I really love and feel at home in. Anyways, I digress yet again; enjoy ;).
The Witch of Dreiden
She was never in a hurry, but always on the move. They’d see her darting across the streets of Dreiden. She does not linger and she never speaks. It made them wonder.
Dressed in an ankle-long moss green gown. Never was she seen in anything else, come rain or shine. As if she stepped out of a long forgotten fairytale and is not aware.
Her face hidden in the hood of a dim greyish cloak, held together with a pin in which those brave enough to go near her, mean to recognise the emblem of the Pagan Trinity.
From time to time, mostly at dusk, she was spotted bobbing through the village holding a bunch of white flowers, which later turned up somewhere in the graveyard, yet it was certain she had no ancestors among our dead.
No one had ever seen her eat, or drink, or sleep and not a soul knew where her house was. If she lived in one. A few believe she lives in a cave, like a dragon. All that could be said, was that she dwelled the woods. That was as far as they had managed to track her, before she disappeared.
Her name was unknown. Some said it was Mary, others called her Beth, at least one believed it to be Lilith. She would respond to either one with a complacent nod.
She was very beautiful, in a mystifying way, and of a disposition so dreamy, it was almost childlike. Chestnut brown hair she had, waist-long and thick as a carpet, and the deep, gleaming eyes of a wolf. She was rumoured able to see in the dark and reported running with packs. Several drifters went as far as to assert having seen her fly through the air.
Her smile was, to say the least, mysterious, her gaze hypnotic. It led young men of the village astray, luring them into the woods at night and into the swamps. Some say the witch had killed them. Their bodies were found occasionally, mutilated to such a degree that it was certain the witch had fed on them, our sons.
She is known to the oldest and wisest of the women, respectable and virtuous from the first to the last, as a bringer of catastrophes. Floods were her specialty.
Wanderers claim that at nights of the full moon, they can hear her voice resound through the forest, that she’d be singing. On such nights, she would bathe in the river, causing the water to rise. And surely, heavy rains would fall.
Whenever showers threatened to make the streams of the valley overflow, the old wives would bring baskets of bread, cake and honey to the edge of the forest, peace-making gifts for some offence on the part of the village.
No one was ever seen collecting them, but the next day, all would be emptied. Naturally, afterwards, the rain would stop.
It was a generally held notion among the elders that whomever spoke ill of her, would die in the course of a month – it was proven many times among their fellows – and so would those sacrilegers who dared hunt inside her woods. When scorned by an individual, a basket would no longer suffice to save the poor soul. She’d smite him with sickness and calamity.
Despite having never uttered a word, she was known to be fickle. She held the pass to the nearest city, the great Danbourg, and those who did not pay her toll, would return no more. Nor would some who did.
As to what she was exactly, opinions were divided. She was called a demon, a vampire, a succubus but the majority held her for a witch. It was often discussed at council meeting if they shouldn’t dispose of her – like had been done before in other towns –but in the end, they dared not. It was especially the question of her possible immortality that made the leaders afraid to push a decision that would incite her wrath against the village. All were anxious. Surely, she was one who lived untouched by time. If they failed to kill her, her vengeance would be eternal.
Never did her appearance alter. It was said, over pints in the cafe or muffled in church, that the fathers of grandfathers had claimed to have seen a strange young woman from the forest, even in their own time. The stories were passed on through the generations and were remembered clear as daylight. More culturally developed among us, swore to discern her silhouette in ancient paintings. She must nothave aged a day. It could not possibly be otherwise.
Whatever she was, the girl was devilish.
Something had to be done. It was decided. For their children. The annual bonfire of San Marc was coming up. This year, they would personally invite her – for the first time in village history – and keep all foreigners at bay. Poke the flames up higher.
It was decided. They would never talk of it again.
This one is a bit difficult for me to categorize. None of the labels given really fits completely with what I have in mind. It's all at once and neither at the same time. Name it after whichever layer you prefer (I'll gladly take suggestions, feel like I forgot a few labels, labelling is a loathed part of internet writing, isn't it?).
This one was written at the same time as 'Phoenix' and finished minutes before. Guess that makes them twins, lol. Anyway, it was just a day after (possibly the same day, memories go hazy that quickly) the elegiac set, when I was still pretty sick and pumped up on stuff to get through classes. So yeah, again, I blame the pain killers. I suppose it is a bit weird.
For insiders (aka residents of The Coffee Shop), I could've called this poem 'an ode on the Rise of the Cult of Mass'. That would make him 'The Beast'. He doesn't visit here, so there's a pretty good chance he's never going to find out and I'll get away with it ;-).
Without further ado... (btw, the song was one of the inspirations. So were my much adored Romantics. And a bunch of other stuff, but I won't keep boring you with endless lists.)
The Awakening of the Beast
A magical cry
splits the tiresome sky
yonder, it howls with thunder
puts the wildest seas asunder
setting mighty Heavens aflame,
the ground from which it came
shall shake and quake.
The beast will reign, shed
smouldering ash and dust from its mane
under its unearthing paws the ground will crack bring long-forgotten legend back from what had turned drought skeletons shall spring and sprout - eyes wild, flesh tender -
deny their surrender
and wolves in awe and fright
from all around call forth the night.
Suggestions, feedback, criticism (esp. on what doesn't seem to work) and pointers will be very much appreciated.
PS: yes, I'm aware I may have 'overdone' it with all the monsters, but in the horror genre, I just have too many illustrations to choose from. It's a deformity...
Alright, I should be doing a post on the awards I got now – especially the ‘versatile Blogger’ one came with rules I haven’t followed yet – but I just finished this and simply can’t wait to hear other people’s thoughts on it... So, sorry, Taylor... What the heck, maybe there will just be two posts today.
When I started writing this, I was determined to write a story, but since I’m still switched on to poetry (that happens from time to time, the two alternate), I ended somewhere in between a story and a poem, which I suppose has a charm of its own. I think if I let this one simmer for a few years and rework it, it could be great. For now it just happened. Please let me know what you think in the comment section.
Cheers!
The Great Evanescence, a poetic story
Though I am old and from long bearing torn from mould,
it feels as though it were just yesterday
when a child I met young Mason Gray.
I was a boy, no more, and full of fright
until one day I lost my way
on a whimsical starry night.
I wandered through a moonlit street
for hours on end
until by chance I got to meet
a boy who’d be henceforth my friend.
There was no house in sight, no hunk of car
and I could see clearly a shimmer from afar
and ran towards it intoxicated
to where the strangest creature waited.
Beneath a lantern stood in ghostly light, all set aglow,
a boy whose face served but to show
the world had not yet killed its verve
and angels would still walk the earth.
I stumbled forward quite in awe
the creature stretched its well-shaped claw
and though his burning gaze revealed a fire mean,
smiled the sweetest smile I’d ever seen.
I like a moth drew ever nearer
for nothing to me ever dearer
then in that sacred flame to smoulder
and so my eyes turned even bolder.
His cheeks the softest crimson blush,
his lashes lush
his skin the purest peach and cream
his eyes as bright as in a dream
tainted by fever great
I met this fairy child of late
tolling a heart-shaped jojo in ennui
at an hour only demons roam free.
When the world was rather dim
this mystic child of light beckoned to come with him
and so I did and together we would knit
the wildest lore forevermore.
Games new and old we’d play
and from the village led astray
we roamed from meadow, bush to wood
where we would act out Robin Hood.
There we would, with sticks and rods,
take for models only gods,
split the forest and feign
to spear even the heavens in our reign.
Until morning bared its teeth
and bit away with pain and grief
at what was our youth
with roses underneath.
All at once the thorns sprung up and marred our face,
robbed us of our innocent grace
and our wondrous camp of clay
faced the stream, was washed away.
Like all things young and fair
my childhood friend dissolved, went up in night air
