Soft golden light accompanied the voice
A luxury, a comfort then to wake
Despite the foggy remnants of his choice
"Unlike you and a foolish thing to break
The hours, son, what can I do to make
The heights of your new station manifest?
One chance today, to see how we are blessed."
In racing, brushing ash, and rushing out
The evanescent recollections fell
Rokhem! The tunic! Scythe! Beyond a doubt
True life was in the flaxen meadow-dell
True life among the stems and shoots to dwell
How true, another day to blithely miss
How true, to suffer blindly, highest bliss
Those eyes like burning embers just ahead
But death lay still beyond, the falling sun
Horizon struck across with pink and red
As Merrasir demanded what he'd done
And Khazemil was reeling overrun
"It happened just the same, and just the same
Rokhem yet gently justified its claim."
"I watched behind the trees at field's edge;
You worked as one whose life in work was spent.
Last night, my plan, you raced towards the sedge;
I saw slight intimations as you went —
I caught both fear and violence in your scent."
"And Merrasir, what of the grain you took?"
"All buried, so that you might never look."
The fox, in his brown tunic, cast his eyes
From Merrasir's bright copper robe to dirt
The pair in silence, tremulous but wise
In walking understood the other's hurt
The vague condemning duty to desert
"I hear it in your steps, the fatal word;
It cannot pass my lips, but I have heard."
Rokhem selected words more carefully
Than Khazemil himself had hoped to try
His body wished to stay, his spirit flee
And once again the dreaming time grew nigh
"They cannot hear us here. I'll whisper why:
Rokhem wraps chains around the farmer's mind
Unkilling poisons in the roots entwined.
"Your fur stands up at this, but see how old
And tired foxes far more eager race
To shelter frosted seedlings in the cold
To die, defying fire's warmth and grace."
"Nobility! Which you should not debase!"
"Is sacrifice so noble without will?
Then sleep, and find your comfort lying still."
❦