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Looking Back On It
I stood on a mountain top of home,
And witnessed the sun setting on a day,
Saw the colors of a different morning written on the horizon -
Exotic hues, emerald isles, and black forests,
Maybe answers, the end of a road, or a beginning at least.
From a wall in the Taunus, or north of Peking,
Roaming like Marco Polo to hear what Confucius had to say,
I heard the wind speak clearly from Jungfrau,
With the same voice entreating the beaches on Saipan.
And ultimately I discovered the Yellow Sea lusterless.
Heeding now the sunrise only, dreaming of Idaho,
Wondering what I sought but never got around to seeing,
Not sure what it was I was looking for, or why,
I surmise this Korean sky from a gray rooftop,
Surprised I ever left home.
Pedigree
My blood was formed in primordial mists,
and persists to this day.
My blood is a legacy of millenniums uncountable.
My blood ascended mountains by the hundreds,
And empires a thousand fold,
And lived lifetimes without number.
My blood died some in Hastings,
And in the Battle of the Lillie in 1054,
And defeated the Saracens,
And gained honor and glory in battlefields now unmarked,
And bled for countries now rendered to moldering pages,
Yet endured and progenerated.
The blood of Charlemagne flows through my veins,
As does that of Pepin,
And Clovis,
And back through the ages until time is lost.
I share a past with Otto the Great,
With knights and pagans,
With plunderers and philanthropists,
With soldiers and scholars.
Powerful my blood is -
A saint and a barbarian am I,
And proud to be of both creeds,
Of all manner of my antecedents.
I am beholden to all,
And proud of the deeds of all my ancestors recorded,
And prouder still of those unrecorded who lived in obscurity,
Whose names defy time’s recollection.
I am the stock of chamberlains, and dukes, and barons, and earls,
And kings praised to heaven or hell,
And paupers who reached a wretched demise in dark corners
Unwitnessed and forgotten,
And no marker to keep the earth where they fell,
And no song, until now, to sing the lives extinguished.
But the line persists.
And kind begets kind.
And the blood is tenacious.
This blood, my blood,
Sustained the princes of Scotland who stood by Duncan.
Ulford, Justice of Ireland, was my blood,
And Llewellyn of Wales,
And Elvira Sanchez de Gamboa of Toledo,
And Don Sancho Garcia de Salzedo, Lord of Ayala Fifthlord,
Who fell at the battle of Alarcos,
Sir Piers Peter de Mauley, Sheriff of Northampton,
Maud of Brittany,
Maurice Fitz Maurice, Lord Justice of Ireland, Lord of Offalyin,
Gerald of Windsor,
And Sybill de Salisbury de Everlaux.
My blood passed from Hersent,
To Charles,
To Louis "The Fair",
To Charles The Great, and Hildegarde of Swabia.
Mine is the line of Welf, Duke of Bavaria,
Odo, Count of Orleans,
Count Giesselbert, and Regnier,
Robert le Frison, Crusader, Count of Flanders and Artois,
Fulk, Count of Anjou, King of Jeruselem,
William The Conqueror, son of Robert "The Devil",
Malcom Canmore, King of Scots,
The original settlers of Wethersfield in 1635,
Richard Goodrich, High Sheriff of Yorkshire,
And Mary, only "Mary", no other title survives,
Killed by Indians in 1677, and I know no more of her.
I am descended from John Wilt of Lynn, Essex, Massachusetts,
And Routrou, Viscount of Chateaudun,
Giselburt, Duke of Lorraine, Lay Abbot of Echternach,
Henry The Fowler, who married Matilda Ringleheim,
Henry I, King of England,
Rulf I,
Fulk II,
Charles III, King of France,
Louis IV, D’Outre-mer,
Edward Atheling, "The Exile", betrothed to Agatha Halt of Hungary,
Sir John Ferres, 1st Baron of Ferrers, born June 20th, 1271,
Godfrey, Count of Namur,
Conrad I, Count of Luxembourg,
Ida of Saxony,
Gospatric, Lord of Workingham of High Ireby,
Aubrey de Vere II, Sheriff of London,
Premyslava and Ladilas of Hungary,
Rogneide of Polotzk,
St. Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev,
Olag of Novogorod,
Walter de Burgh, Earl of Ulster,
Isobel Bigod,
Richard Mor de Burc,
Isabel of England,
And Richard the lion hearted, son of Henry II, King of England.
Duncan II, King of Scots was my ancestor,
And Athelreda of Northumberland,
Daughter of the sister of Edmund,
And Robert de Rumely, Lord of Coupland and Skipton in Craven,
Agatha of Ravensworth,
Ansfred the Dane,
Hrollager,
Rognvald Eysteinsson,
Aseda of Jutland,
Sveide the Viking,
Rognvald Olafsson, son of Olaf Gudrodsson,
Cecily Avenal, Lady of Bicknor,
William Malet, Baron of Curry Malet,
Sir John Hastings,
Dambrowka of Bohemia,
Boleslaus "The Cruel",
Borivorius, 1st Christian Duke of Bohemia,
Edgar the Peaceful, King of England,
Lady Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred The Great,
Joan de Tateshal,
Who received Tateshal for her share of her father’s estate,
St. Luitgarde Count of Cleeves,
Curopalatis, Emperor of the East,
Josceline of Denmark,
Walravius, Count of Nassau,
Dunlaing, King of Leinster,
Arnmod Arnvidarsson, born in Onundfjord, Norway,
John De Hastings of Leamington House,
The Earl of Arundell, beheaded in 1326,
William De Warren, who died in a tournament,
Don Galindo Valasquez de Ayala,
Who was at the conquest of Saragoca,
Sancho Velasquez, to whom Don Alonzo VI, King of Castile,
Granted the lordship of Ayala in 1074.
I am of the line of the infante Don Velade Aragon,
And Alphonso, King of Portugal,
James, King of Aragon,
Ferdinand III, King of Castile,
Cynan ap Gwaethfoed from Wales,
Eric VIII, King of Sweden,
Skoglar Tostem, whose lineage has been lost,
Bruno, Bischop of Augsburg,
Skjold, King of the Danes,
Odin of Asgard,
And Frigg, born in 219,
And Cadwalladr before him but unrecorded when,
And Snaer, King of Sweden,
Vanlandi Svegdasson,
James Weeden and Isabel Winch,
And Iodine de Camville,
Who married Sir William Longespee, Earl of Salisbury,
Who was slain in battle with the Saracens,
And Isabel Mauduit of Elmley Castle,
Who died in a nunnery at Cokehill,
And Charles "The Bald", who died on Mount Senis in the Alps,
And Thomas De Clare, who fell in battle in Ireland in 1286,
And Hugh de Moreville, one of the four knights
Who assassinated Thomas A. Brecket, Archbishop of Canterbury.
My lineage comes from Walter de Gant,
Commander in the Battle of the Standard,
And Sir Richard Fitz Allen, Beheaded in 1397,
From Constantine II, slain by Norwegians in battle,
Refil Bjornsson,
Murcertac O’Toole, son of Gillacomghall O’Toole,
Thomas de Monthermer, lord slain at the battle of Sluys in Flanders,
Sir Richard Woodville,
Lord High Constable of England, beheaded in 1469,
Ursanus Nobilus,
Auda the Deep Minded,
Thorstein the Red of Rogaland,
Ketel Wether of Romerike,
Vedrar Grim, Earl of Sogne,
Skaan,
Svyar,
Stelmi,
Ketel Flatness, Lord of Hebrides,
Walpert, Count of Ringelheim,
Ragnhildis Ludmilla,
William Seylard, citizen of London, merchant and tailor,
William Carpenter, who came to America from Southampton,
Mary Petty,
Colonel John Whiting of Hartford, Connecticut,
And Matthew Allyn and Margeret Wyatt,
From whom President Grover Cleveland descended.
I am of the clan of John Bullard, born in 1485,
Whose name was recorded on the militia muster roll in Suffolk,
And William Wilson, buried in Windsor Castle,
John Smith, a quartermaster in the Netherlands,
Who sought the new world in 1635,
And the Reverend William Wilson,
Now resting in Saint George Chapel in Windsor,
And Hugh Heath of Huxley,
And John Warren, who came to Boston on the Arabella in 1630,
Gilbert de Clare, a red crusader, wed to the princess Joan de Acre,
Hugh Magnus, a leader of the First Crusade,
Hugh, Count of Paris,
Borelo, Count of Urgel,
Captain James Leonard, who built "The House of the Seven Gables",
Where he and his wife Lydia Dwelt.
And he was a friend to the Indian chief Massasoit.
And under the foundation of his house,
He secreted the head of Massasoit’s son.
And in my genealogy, I have found
Isaac Learned of Middlesex,
And Running Deer, born about 1715,
And Mary Lewis, with dark eyes and hair,
Given a beaded dress and moccasins,
And Edwin Whiting, who passed away in Mapleton, Utah in 1890,
And Benjamin Averett in Springville in 1888.
And thirteen volumes of names from my father’s childhood home.
All these have passed,
And my grandmother, Myrtle Bernice Holt, has recorded their lives,
And through her diligence left the knowledge for me in her books,
That I may claim entitlement to the memory,
That I might seek and find in a single evening,
All my kin, my kind, my ancestry,
That I might stand proud,
That I might bear my blood with honor,
My nobility and peasantry,
That I might concede my heritage eagerly.
And here then is my tongue to stir the memory,
To wake the spirits of all my forbearers, my ancestors,
To seal this past to my name,
To write an epitaph with this remembrance.
Rise, oh, ghostly kin and kind,
Rise on the wind, on my breath,
Upon my notes and tones.
Possess me, this mortar yet sustaining the foundation.
I am your hope.
You are my treasured names and records.
I revere all.
And if I lack a name for some,
With no limit to my enthusiasm
Do I embrace these nameless brothers and sisters,
And sing their praise.
Had I omnipotence,
I would grave all this history,
All these life experiences,
Upon a planet,
Or yet a star shining brilliantly,
And cast it spiraling heavenward for all time,
A radiating celestial body,
An inspiration to the darkness.
And I would watch from a space between the trees.
And I would sing softly to myself.
I am Daniel F Mitchell, beneficiary of all my predecessors.
I was born in 1960,
And will never die.
And I shall rise tomorrow, and teach children these words.
Passing An Old House
Whose house this was, I cannot say,
The family has gone away.
Yet something lingers in the air,
As if to beckon me to stay.
The amber rays of evening light
Illuminate the chimney’s height,
Near set on fire the sagging eave,
Give glory to attrition’s blight.
No plow to cultivate new seeds,
What grew before is gone to weeds,
Along a path to an empty door -
An avenue of bygone deeds.
Across the fields, a solemn breeze
Stirs lifeless leaves upon the trees,
Like ghosts of faded memories,
Mere ghosts of faded memories.
In A Garage
In a garage, in the dust,
I saw a face. I found a photograph,
Like some mirage of a boy in a laugh,
in the space between a box and the wall.
It must have fallen there long ago,
When laughs were free to show,
And photographs were meant to preserve
Happiness, reserve it for a latter day,
Not to be thrown away in a dusty mess.
Mothers
Strange that this nostalgia should seem so clear,
So natural, now that it is too late.
What words might state your praise?
All the hardship, the bereavement,
The injustices suffered,
All failing to crush your spirits,
Or leave any rancor.
You endured so much,
With such wit and bravery.
How could we equate it in a simple poem?
Ogre In The Armchair
My grandfather was a broken giant, a toothless old bear.
His toil had reduced him to the world of an olive armchair.
It was hard for him to walk, but he was too tired to care.
He sat waiting all day like a worn-out ogre in his lair.
Against his strong pride, he roared us into his great embrace,
Demanded our young kisses on the side of his granite face,
Wrapped love around us that only a lifetime could amass,
And babbled out his affection as if the chance would soon pass.
Horseshoe-Nail Ring
In her late-hour reminiscence,
She saw him against the sunrise,
Strong upon his chestnut stallion,
Tipping his brim to her as she smiled -
She, the schoolmarm, daffodil, poem-worthy soul,
As lovely as the yellowing photograph upon the mantel.
Young was she, serenaded by bird song, morning song,
Wrapped in rapture -
The cowboy stepping down to the dew-fresh grass,
Holding his hat upon his chest, over his heart to keep in the emotion,
His rock-hard hand presenting the ring as delicately as it was able -
The iron ring, pounded from a horseshoe nail.
In her sagging dresser drawer,
She kept a horseshoe-nail ring.
In her late-hour reminiscence,
A cowboy brought her the wealth of Eldorado,
And placed it in the palm of her hand.
Cat Lady
Cats are all about,
Climbing in and out
Of windows and doors,
Prowling back room floors,
Perched on corner chairs,
Hid in bed-stand lairs
From countless toy mice,
Gathered for a nap
On the lady’s lap,
In cat paradise.
Shelter From The Storm
Now and again, I remember the garden that was childhood.
In a fog, I sometimes sense what I never quite understood -
That watercolor dream of all things real and most that are not,
Filtered through the haze of dawn into a clouded melting pot.
The taste of the day was ambrosial nectar from a spring,
The dew drops fresh on the grass beneath my feet. And the bee sting
There and painful, was diluted by comprehension too deep,
All care beyond the touch secured in a peaceful sleep.
Mornings pass, afternoons come and go, evenings give way to night,
And beneath the stars I stand and secretly wish that I might
Gather up enough wishes, and dreams, and hopes, to fill a sea,
And paint them in a never-ending, mystical, fantasy.
Childhood was just a fuzzy rendition of time on my heart.
I watched the show but I never really seemed to play a part.
Like a sky clouded then blue, I am not what I was before.
Now that my mind has cleared, I can’t see the shapes anymore.
Puppy Street
I had so many things to do,
And so many places to go,
Where to run first I didn’t know.
It looked like I’d never be through.
The way a puppy looked at me
From the window of a pet store
Has made this busy bee now see
Things from a happy puppy’s floor.
The schedules I had to meet
Can meet themselves for all I care.
I’m staying here on puppy street
Where life’s as good as anywhere.
Fame For A Plain-Jane
You were a plain-Jane
Looking in vain
For popularity.
I never knew your name,
But the sincerity
Of your smile
Made me feel glad for a while.
Here is your claim to fame.
Toy Story
The old man browses the toys,
Marveling at each device.
I recall when boys were boys,
And a good stick would suffice.
In A Pile Of Leaves
We swam in seas of maple leaves,
Splashed in a wake of rustling waves,
Gathered golden treasure like thieves,
Buried ourselves in living graves,
But burst forth in resurrection,
Undaunted by death’s brittle chain,
In riotous insurrection,
Kicked up a storm of skyward rain.
In autumn winds, we went our ways,
Entered dreams wherein we hunkered,
And spent the better part of days,
In mountains we raised and conquered.
The Ripening Of Delight
There was an orchard on a hillside,
Like some sweet oasis in a hay field,
And a rutted track of road to divide
Jurisdiction, and separate yield.
A boy wandered, instilled
By the crisp-biting scent
Of cool luscious jewels – thrilled,
Through heaven on earth went.
There was a robin’s nest,
Built in a season’s rent,
On an apple tree’s crest,
But with no inhabitant -
Abandoned on a fledgling’s whim to wander
Off to see the wide earth,
All universal mysteries to ponder,
And weigh a single apple’s worth.
Perhaps, intending to return someday
On a one-way ticket,
A bird lost its way,
Caught in some thorny thicket.
To any experienced fool made wise
By retrospect and regret,
It comes as no surprise
To find a bird flown far away, yet
Longing for a nest in orchard trees,
Riding out the sway
Upon a pear-scented breeze,
With no inclination but to stay.
Frost glistens on apples and pears,
A little past harvest time,
Twinkling magically, shares
A bit of alchemy’s rhyme,
Wages reason to keep any reasonable sort
Standing there year after year, waiting,
Abiding no other sport
Than the ripening of delight, never abating..
Ten Tenets Of A Roman’s Meditations
I.
If I am nothing but a product of chaotic brew,
Why should I wish to tarry in universal confusion?
And if the supposition of a governor is true,
I need only have faith in the order of his profusion.
II.
O dear Zeus, on plowed fields rain, rain down on the Athenian plain!
In truth we ought not pray at all, else hope in vain.
Let us accept what the gods give us, whether pleasure or pain.
III.
Be like a cliff against which waves constantly break.
Stand firm, though the furies of the oceans quake.
IV.
When you rise in the morning, let this thought be with you:
The labors for which I was created, I am going forth to do.
V.
Be not unhappy or discontent if you fail where you have failed before.
Renew your philosophies, review your nature, and try once more.
VI.
The multitudes admire material things – of metal, stone, and wood.
Men a little more rational admire things that are founded upon good.
Men more instructed admire the principles of an aspiring soul.
He who is above all values his soul, and strives to make it whole.
VII.
Think no thought or deed beneath you.
By base people’s words be not perverted.
From principles you know to be true,
A wise and tranquil course, be not diverted.
VIII.
One man, having performed a service to another, calculates it as an outstanding debt won.
A second, accounts another’s debt owed to him, but for payment asks none.
A third, like a bee making honey, does good without thinking what he has done.
IX.
How am I now employing my soul ? – What question is greater in the least!
Whose soul do I have now – that of a child, a man, a tyrant, or a beast?
X.
Observe how ephemeral all human beings really are.
What today is breathing, tomorrow is ashes in a jar.
What did it avail conquerors to wage battle in their day?
How great now are Herculanuem and Helice and Pompeii?
Pass through your short moment of time in harmony with nature.
End your journey in contentment, as an olive when mature,
Blessing the power that produced a crop as wondrous as you,
And thanking the tree, the earth, and the sun from which all grew.
Preston School
In Preston there’s an olden school,
Abandoned by its faculty,
Forgotten by the golden rule,
Long crumbling to obscurity.
The timbers carved by caring pains
Are warped and parched by ruthless rains.
And seeps the weather through the seams,
And bows the rafters and the beams.
The blackboard waits as if to say
Why are there none for school today?
Why has the master stayed away?
Where have the children gone to play?
Through Preston
If ever you pass through Preston, friend,
Shout to all you see,
With heartfelt zeal vocally lend
Your acquaintanceship with me.
If you should walk the streets I wandered,
See if you can find
Some of the thoughts that I pondered
When I was in the same mind.
See if Preston can remember me.
If you should pass through,
Please tell everybody you see
That I once passed that way too.
Reunion
So, we meet again, at long last,
To reminisce about the past.
You are still you, and I’m still me.
Though we can never again be
What we used to be way back then.
I still clearly remember when
We were so young and so naive,
When we had so much to achieve.
Now your thoughts have become dreary.
And my wit has become weary.
You, long past your life’s pinnacle,
I, so doubtful and cynical,
Seek a reunification.
We need reconciliation
With our lost dreams and ambition.
Our goals well beyond fruition,
Our youth gone on a one-way trip,
We search for our long lost friendship,
Again, my sister, my brother.
We still see hope in each other.
Album
Silhouettes amidst the fog of past,
Misted figures in a photograph,
Of life’s gaiety are all that last
Beyond the moment of the last laugh.
Witch Spell
The house is so silent now,
I cannot bear to sit any longer.
Alone on this stump, I am cold,
Colder still to feel the sun
Of that morning
When these roots had life.
I hear a gust of wind picking up,
No branches for it to sway,
Just the gate hinges recalling the days
Of shade and laughter on the grass.
I think I should rise, meet it, him -
The old man gone from his arm chair.
Were his knees newer, maybe he too
Would rise to see it.
He saw the colors it had before.
He rose on other days,
And walked the garden path
To the field beyond the shed.
The plots are fallow now,
Unplowed for some time,
Rows of posts still tied by rusted wire,
But not so tight as in times past -
A few winters away from complete emancipation,
Though they must be too warped and weathered to care.
I fear the hedge is grown beyond hope.
No shears will bend its ways now.
The dead spot where the old tabby used
To bear her kittens has widened some,
Not so much that it wouldn’t still do
For cat shelter, or even a mouse.
The ghost should be gone since
He dragged the skeleton out with his hoe,
And buried the soul beneath the walnut tree.
He’ll not need the space any longer.
He’s hoed no more than tabby’s bones
For many summers.
A fine patch of fuzzy weeds grow
Where the strawberries did.
Memories of pumpkins, and grape vines,
And frosted plums come to mind.
A few rattling corn stalks are still standing
Like some deserted, Navaho graveyard.
A wind blows long and low, across the open rows -
A conscience burdened with past vice,
Or mirth simply expired,
As the whispering of witches,
Not in spell and conjuring,
But in repentance and remorse,
Or maybe just the cat.
I think I’ll rise and find it.
Cuckoo Clock
There’s a sorrowful moan of a cuckoo,
Who dutifully keeps each hour
And half, awaiting silently between
For the mean pendulum to swing,
To dispose the seconds, tick-tick,
The forest round growing old,
The flowers petrified at a quarter to spring,
While the woodcutter stands listlessly,
Too aged to swing his ax anymore,
Watching the waterwheel turning round,
Awaiting the cuckoo’s declaration.
And only the cuckoo knows the reason,
Awaiting to moan sorrowfully the hour.
Adventure’s Track
Into the home,
Adventure calls.
The urge to roam
Pervades the walls.
But then the track
Soon bends and turns,
Soon doubles back,
And homeward yearns.
Broken, Old, Man At The Windowsill
A broken, old, man at the windowsill
Watched the sky,
Saw the world go by.
Maybe he is there still,
Wondering at the change,
Trying to arrange
The thoughts that pass,
And frame them in glass.
I Believe In Christmas Eve
The spirit here I think I see,
Reflected from the Christmas tree,
Across the crisp December snow -
A beacon of security.
Watching from my frosted window,
I think that, finally, I know
Why I believe in Christmas eve -
That light that makes a pine tree glow.
Safe in this silent-night reprieve
From a troubled world, I believe
In peace on earth, good will to all.
Here, it is easy to achieve.
Watching herald angels fall
As snow beyond my glistening wall,
I wait for Santa Claus to call.
And like a child, I feel so small.
Vision From My Porch On A Starry September Night
Svernson lay in a dream.
In a dream he lay in a sod hut,
In the fold of Lampa Runa,
Where his life once was.
And he envisioned his mother,
His mother sitting at a wheel
Spinning fleece into yarn for barter.
His mother hummed a soft melody
To the rhythm of the treadle.
And her hands fed fleece into the spindle.
And ashen strands of yarn curled down
Around her legs to a mound on the floor.
The floor shimmered in the flame flicker from the hearth.
The floor timbers were parched and polished smooth
By the passing feet of many generations of family.
And his father sat in a rocker near the hearth,
Clenching the stump of a cob pipe in his toothless gums.
His father was a grizzled man,
And wordless since the loss of his eldest son.
The dream showed clearly his father,
Sitting there in a rocker near the hearth,
Weighing the papers in his hands
To see if there was some significance he had missed
In the orders for his youngest and last son’s military obligation -
A death sentence for the last son of the line.
This he weighed there in a rocker at the hearth.
The old man’s face was traced with sorrow,
Wearing years far beyond his years, for the sorrow.
His eyes were distant, lost in grave rumination.
He stared into the fire, seeing things far past,
Seeing days before time took his dreams away,
When the sun was bright, and the days sweet.
Svern, father of Svernson, had passed away soon afterwards,
Ascended in a feverish sweat to the halls of Monlathia,
Certain, before his ascension, that his posterity proceeded him,
As if he had never been – only memory waiting to be forgotten.
All of the family line had passed but Svernson.
All of the life of the line was but a memory.
And Svernson , alone of the line, remained to bear the memory,
With nothing to base the memory on but his recollection
And the old sod hut in the fold of Lampa Runa.
Only the house remained of the former times,
Now home to barrow rats and transient ghosts on windy nights.
And all else was illusionary and unreal like all other dreams.
After this vision, the dream passed on to darkness,
Receded into a dark recess of his consciousness,
Forced away by the reverberation of a machine.
And he searched for kindly faces but saw no more,
Heard only the harsh whine of jet engines.
And steadily intensifying was the din,
In his head pounding.
Grenades exploded in his head.
Lead-slingers sputtered from the past,
And heavy guns shook the ground tempestuously.
And proton clusters brightly screamed across a night long ago.
And he felt the searing heat of a bullet wound,
The flesh long-ago healed, but not the wound.
And he writhed in agony.
In his head there were screams of the dying never dying.
And a cannon flashed too near to be heard.
And a body fell at his feet,
The head half gone from the body,
But the eyes intact and staring,
The eyes imploring his assistance,
The trusting eyes of a companion fallen.
And the screams were too loud to be heard,
And the words incoherent to his understanding.
But the turbines drowned all other sound out.
The turbines whined and forced the visions away for a time.
And a cloud passed his mind’s eye for a time.
And his eyelids parted for an instant, then were open full.
And he fumbled for a weapon but found no weapon.
There were no more weapons.
The war was over and the weapons no longer tangible.
And the dream was finished.
He observed, through the murky expanse that separates dreams from waking,
A whirlwind of dust rising from the crest of the hill beyond the pasture.
And there was the whine of engine turbines winding and winding.
And there was a hovercraft setting down in a whirling torrent of dust.
And it was no dream at all.
The machine was as real as the hill it was landing upon.
And he, unable to will it away, accepted it as reality.
But he arose as if in a dream.
He arose and went to receive his visitor.
And he could not believe that which he could see.
But he went to receive it, whether it was real or a dream.
And he saw there on the crest of the hill,
On the crown of a grassy knoll,
A man.
The man was very familiar,
As if an incarnation of a past life at last rising to meet him,
As if an image in a mirror,
A pillar of a man, clad in chestnut battle dress,
With shining gold lightning bolts emblazoned on each sleeve,
Federation Elite Forces insignias,
And amber colonel’s clusters shimmering at the corners of his chin.
The colonel wore a red beret, studded beneath by steel-blue hair,
His hair cropped to a stiff bristle against his scalp.
And his face was shaped like an alpine boulder,
Pounded out by tempest storms,
Formed by the weathers of war,
Hard as granite, etched with tight lines like a battle map.
Svernson stood off a distance from the Elite Forces officer,
And studied him for a while.
And the colonel studied the Lathian in silence for a while -
The wild hair and beard, and the raiment of animal skins.
And he nodded his head in approval,
Then advanced toward the Lathian,
Not as to an inferior, but as if towards an equal, or superior, or son.
The Federation colonel snapped to attention,
And touched his fingertips smartly to his beret.
And Svernson returned the salute and a remorseful smile.
The colonel’s wrinkles unfolded as his face softened for a moment,
Then he scowled once more.
He looked out past Svernson,
Out across the emerald hills rolling away and away beneath an everlasting sky.
The wind picked up,
Coming in gusts against the hill,
Whipping Svernson’s flaxen hair about his head.
A gust caught the colonel’s beret and blew it out across the sward.
The colonel ignored the beret,
Grimaced,
Said,
"Smells like winter’s blowin’ in."
Svernson agreed with a twitch of his brow,
Watching the Elite Forces beret twirl away in the breeze,
Twirling away in the breeze like an Autumn leaf.
And he held his peace for a time more,
Then said,
"Coming early this year. Got the first frost a few days back.
Expect the snow will fall before Raven’s Tack Eve."
The ruddy colonel’s eyes brightened some.
"Good thing I didn’t wait any longer to come
Or I’d of had to grow my hair out like yours."
Svernson patronized him with a weak smile.
"Yes, sir. We Lathies would be in bad form without our hair.
Now if we just knew how to grow it so well on our arses,
We could braid it all around our legs
And save the trouble of wearing pants."
The colonel grunted his approval at the humor.
He said scurrilously,
"You remember that blizzard that caught us on Alderon?
Stars in heaven!
We all could have used some Lathian hair on our arses,
All of us laying around Jimmerson, tryin’ to keep the poor bastard from freezing.
And all that snow blowing around.
Stars!
What a night that was!"
Svernson looked down at the mirror finish on the colonel’s boots,
Searching for eternity reflected there.
"Jimmerson’s gone," he said; a measured observation.
And the colonel conceded with a quick nod of his head.
He ran his hand over his face and up over the stubble of his head.
"Goddamn," he said, "Goddamn."
Svernson offered him another smile.
"Anyway, it’s good to see you, Colonel Zacharia."
The colonel looked away and drew a deep breath, a breath of chill air,
Sweet air as if a breeze had carried it over a field of honey clover.
"How you been, boy?"
Svernson answered with silence.
Colonel Zacharia shook his head ruefully.
"I know I should have come a long time before now.
It’s just…I thought you’d want to try and forget it all."
Svernson inclined his head as if bore down by a great weight.
"Ain’t no forgetting, boss."
The Elite Forces colonel considered the flock of Naeru grazing in the valley below,
As if the point of conversation lay there.
"No, there sure as hell ain’t no forgetting.
You know,
I never even said good-bye to you before they shipped me out to Mesron.
I guess you heard what happened to us on Mesron.
Goddamn! What a bloody waste that was.
I never quite got over it.
I sent most of the condolence letters to all the boy’s folks myself."
He bared his broken teeth, and looked out across the green fields.
There were dark clouds looming on the edge of the sky.
The wind was growing frigid, from the north and west, howling.
Svernson waited for a lull in the wind and said,
"I wanted to come to the retreat ceremony last year,
But I didn’t have the fare to Tyrus.
I had to use all my separation credits to pay the back taxes on my family’s spread."
Colonel Zacharia turned his face into the wind,
And scratched at the pink lump on the side of his head where his ear had once been.
"Well, you’ve got a nice place here.
I forgot how beautiful it was here.
I haven’t been to Lathia for so many years
I don’t remember how many years it’s been.
I recruited for the Fed over in Landur until the Elite went on total recall.
That’s when I hand-picked all my boys, everyone of them.
You Lathies were the damnedest sort of wild men I ever saw in my life,
Goddamn giants all clad in animal skins, and eating meat cooked on a open fire,
Gone back to a better way of life just like nothing else had ever happened in the universe.
I was impressed enough to man an entire battalion with your breed.
I never saw such a proud lot, strong, fast, smart, quick to learn, slow to forget,
Loyal to your last goddamn breath.
I was proud to fight with you Lathies.
I’ll say that for goddamn sure.
I would have taken a bullet for any one of you.
I wish I had. It would have been a lot easier that way.
As it stands, I’m the one that has to live with the blame.
I took away all the best sons of Lathia and shipped their bodies back to their mothers.
What the Fed let happen to my boys, I can never forgive.
But all else aside, I was the one that found them.
And I was the one that trained them.
And I watched them all die,
All but you and the Emmerson boy.
And he bought it last year – some damn virus I’ve been told."
Svernson looked his colonel straight in the eye.
"You did us nothing but good, boss.
None of us ever wanted to fight for anybody else."
Colonel Zacharia grimaced,
And the corners of his mouth contorted with grief.
"The blame has to go somewhere though.
And I ain’t gonna run from it."
Svernson felt a tightness forming in his chest.
He brushed the hair from his face and aligned the soles of his feet together.
"You never ran from anything, boss."
Colonel Zacharia looked away, to the sky as if to contemplate.
"I guess I never knew where to run."
Svernson nodded tacitly.
And Colonel Zacharia shifted from side to side,
And blew into his hands to warm them.
"I’m going to freeze my arse off out here.
I’m getting too old, too soft.
I guess I’ve spent too much time in a cushy office.
There ain’t much for an old dog to do in the hitch anymore.
I’m just driftwood, just passing time -
Another nine months to full pension.
Now I just got to decide which coffin farm to be shipped out to.
Never thought I’d go from old age."
And he grunted,
Indicating that the situation should be viewed as humorous.
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