CLARITY (off-stage lines)
The quest of the fiery dragon;
winter warrior is he.
Protector of the castle
lord,
whose walls stand up against the sea.
"What can say the merry men"?
asked
one old man-a-knitting.
"I can tend the broken goat and
mend the shoe
not fitting".
Of course you know the price to pay,
if not so high to dicker.
Three Hearts,
a Rose, and Dragon's ice
beat dancing flames to flicker.
"What can say
the merry men"?
while the poor lord's ember died.
No matter how oft' he
crossed the road,
he could not reach the other side.
The price he paid to join
your world
was to lose a life in mine.
(Funny how true colours change
when
spied from the other side)
Years slid by, his edges shown
your world saw it's
mistake.
The doors were locked,
he walked back home;
there too, he'd been
forsaken.
"Oh let me in, please let me in",
I heard the young lord
cry.
"Oh please dear friends, please
turn the key - I do not want to die.
For
death is not yet mine you see,
I have not found the way.
My hindsight begs
for a tapestry
to weave itself today".
A hindsight marked by a memory's mist;
to beckon unseen
to mournfully call
his soul of youthful days,
when twilight fell
and dreams propelled
dead
thoughts of moonlit bays,
and waves and silk and cherry pie
and dew that melts
away.
A man left dry to wander about
hungry and forlorn,
hears a tired
old moan
cut sharp through the night
from his native shore's foghorn.
"What
can say the merry men"?
as the old lord heard the cry.
A cry of time
lost
in itself;
bound in cyclones spinning by.
"gypsy told me what to
say, gypsy love and
gypsy gold.
gypsy,
you may know me
but you've never met
my soul".
T. Shannon Mapes
copyright 1992
11/25/91
written in a coffee
house
in madison, wi. - while waiting
for bill m.
