I wrote this at 2AM after finishing Riven, a few months after it was released.
That was the first time I'd ever cried for any movie, book, or game, when I was going up the elevator to find Catherine. I'd figured out, the moment I read her journal, that the missing island must be the remains of the Great Tree she loved so much, and I had this gutwrenching feeling that Gehn's sadistic sense of humor, so visible all over the island, meant he'd imprisoned her in whatever was left of the tree. I'm sure many of you guessed the same. Even expecting it, I was so angry to see my fears realized. It had become more to me than a game, and then these characters took on a life as real as that of Frodo and Bilbo, Han and Leia, Aslan and Aravis.
Thus I became a disciple of St. Katran, and I humbly submit the moment of my conversion
Stands alone
What does she see
Truth written stark
Will she be the last
No.
She waits
~~~~~~~~~~~~
But Words are more than Things
Let me always be surprising you.
You write the Page while looking through
Yes! There! A ship embracing stone!
The tree roots deep
He did not see the pen I wield like a knife
I will dream.
Atrus, my love, if not for you,
Instead, let me spin you worlds
The falling water:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This poem is in the form of a Japanese Tanka, in which each verse follows a strict rule of 5/7/5/5.
Water slaps the dock,
Pass the star chamber
To a clock tower
The library stands
An old woman's grave:
Catherine
Upon a balcony of bone
Overlooking a breathing sea
That echoes sighs she never speaks.
She turns, walks back inside
To pace her narrow prison:
Hollowed heart
of the World Tree
Cut to the knees
Its leaves and sacred boughs
Towered trunk long since taken
Grist for Gehn's empty books.
In her blood red robe
Stripped of her people's mask
Wife of a dead man
Child of a dying world
Guardian of a dream
Goddess to a riven people?
on unseen pages
Broken stones
Fallen trees
Islands drowning
Sundered from sea to sky.
Living soul of a dying Age
Cast adrift on her
Tiny shipwreck
Divested of words,
Her worlds?
Who understands too well
For this humble traveller
Who understands nothing
Who walks alone, like her
To find and set her free.
You ask me how can this be
My love
Have you forgotten?
You are not Gods,
And this is not Magic
And the universe delights itself in surprises.
The window to a new Age
I write within the Page looking back through.
That is the way I write.
Well, perhaps, not quite that way,
But see! You can stretch wings
Further than you think.
And there is such a place
Where the tree is the world,
And the tree is not the world.
Master of Signs, he thinks himself,
But he did not recognize my sign:
You think you own us?
You think you hold us?
Here! I throw my dagger in your face!
Here! This is the power of my people!
Here! Do you not know whose hand holds the hilt?
Fool.
I can make worlds you cannot dream of, old man
And you dare to tell my people the sign is your design?
You who said I was only a figment of your pen,
Now claim one of mine?
Who is the teacher, who the student now?
I think I might wish to be dangerous.
To make you wonder
And thus we will talk,
Exchanging Age with Age
and Word for Word,
and Dream for Dream.
Is it at the top or at the bottom
Of its plunge that you see it?
Yes, both.
Gulls, circling, cry from afar,
A path leads up wood
Splintered stairs. Rusted metal
Teeth loom, now forever stilled.
Where once music used to play,
A dried-up fountain.
Brambles have taken the paths
Through the forest, by the huts,
Its face so caked by salt-spray
It's illegible.
A rocket lies immoble,
Improbable organ mute.
With moss growing up columns
Wood panels peeling
Within. Shelves are lined with dust,
Not books. Two black scorch-marks,
There are too many ghosts here.
Once loved, abandoned,
The island sleeps. Butterflies
Hover over blue flowers.