sw00376jt-b1.e11

Justan Tamarind: Book I       e11                            



Or Black, or a Bronze sheen; dawn or eve.
Far to the right, a hill where many grieve
Holds to a marble cross (a green-haired fist
Gripping/ a mark of extinction).  Believe
They what they will, their hearts have been kissed
By that symbol; and that burial site
Of two hundred/ years of kings--through a mist
Seen/ by millions of eyes--lighted at night
By the flames from torches, stars, coffins might

In the tightened/ throats of the living, in
The ground; and they do not deny its thin
Intrusions into/ their hungry veins,
That bringer of/ death as food.  Within
Leoma, yet nearest to those plains
Between it and/ The Mounds of Tamarind
Kingdoms cemetary, its Elcon panes
Sputtering blue, the holy Osteind
Lime-white steeple gently allures the sinned-

Against, the sinning, as to its left,
My pageant wizard's shrine, possessed of heft
In equal measure, equally does.  Around
These massive temples a singular reft
Appears, recalling there the raucous sounds
Of soot-marked children, elders wan; for there
The markets, abodes crumble, tumble down,
Their wooden walls rot from their pointless stairs,
Their renters pass dimly from strength or care

While their owners rest pillowed on some hill
Or in a wooded acre by a rill,
Enjoying ordered loveliness--the best
They think they can afford.  They, too, are still.
Why does a mourning dove construct a nest
In such an easy, sloppy manner, while
A robin molds a firm cup in its zest?
Still, robins do not rob, or whisper:  "I'll
Be tops, and care not how my domicile

Was made."  Around Leoma's trunk, old
And new, apartments built against the cold,
Like needles on a ragged evergreen,
Allow the trunk to expel, to hold,
To be.  Four memorials can be seen
Beside the left bank of the Eribon,
Which curves into the Durin Sea between
The starry temples and the cambium
Of Moiland's central town--those mastodon





Brian A. J. Salchert