From the Songs of the Greenwood
Author's note:
This is the death song of one of Mirkwood's Avarin archers, after
the Battle Under Trees, at the end of the Ring War. This awkward
poem was inspired by a much better one written by Attila József,
one of the greatest poets of 20th century Hungarian literature.
The use of tenses - or moreso the lack of that - is intentional.
I tried to bring over the atmosphere of the original poem, and
since Hungarian has only three tenses (past, present and future),
I felt the need to use some of the language tools of my mother
tongue.
The original poem had nothing to do with war or battles, by the way. It simply described a raspberry bush rocking some waste paper in its twigs in dusk.
AFTERMATH
by Soledad
The trees murmur a song long forgotten,
warm and gentle is the dance of the branches.
Soft evening lights shimmer like smooth pearls
through the densely-woven veil of leaves.
The damp mountains gleam in the trembling
light.
My song is fading over the gentle hills.
To what fields, now, my stumbling feet shall take me?
Where might my broken limbs now heal?
Hard and faithfully I fought the good fight,
like angry bees my arrows had flown,
humming with eager wrath - now they are fallen.
Why feel so weary? Had my path been lost ?
The fight is fought. My heart in peace.
Now I go and rest in the dark.
Like thin blades of grass my fingers tremble.
My heart trembles like the newborn stars.
My sincerest thanks go to Finch for her help and encouragement. If this is any good, that is because of her. All the weird parts are my doing.