Ascension
My father's passing brings me to this place
An unthanked servant of an absent king
ascends the steps with ashes on his face
A thousand years of fruitless withering
The truth can't be denied. This is my fate
an unthanked servant of an absent king
Outside the shadow gathers at the gate
All that begins in my time is - the end
The truth can't be denied. This is my fate
I cannot shed a tear or seem to bend
lest destiny destroy me like a knife
All that begins in my time is - the end
It asks for all I am; my sons, my wife
And I accept the bargain, as a man
lest destiny destroy me like a knife
My life lies like a bridge across this span.
My father's passing brings me to this place
And I accept the bargain, as a man
ascends the steps with ashes on his face
*******
Author's notes:
Ahh, Denethor... I am dreadfully afraid I am coming to understand the man...
or at least the part of him that interpreted things to his own world view.
This deals with Denethor's feelings of the ceremony and obligations of a steward
who has had no king to serve for almost a thousand years.
I have such a strong symbolic image of the oil / chrism used for such annointings
and I wanted to contrast it with his later madness, but oil as an image is changed
in our modern mind, and it got too.... squicky. So, the ashes.
This piece is a terzanelle, and it was written for the Denethor's Poetry challenge
at Henneth Annun.