This interlude owes very much to many people. To thank them would be to demean them, but I believe that Homer, Achilles (again), Helen of Troy and the goddess Aphrodite must know that their Hellenic flame has outlasted and outshone the downfall of two civilisations and the steady crumbling of a third to stay magnificently alive – somewhere, somehow. I owe much to Christopher Logue's brilliant translation of the Iliad, literally and figuratively, for this one.


Beauty is cruel, but just sometimes, it is enough.


On a more random note, thank you to Lipstick and the brief glimpse into her fur-wearing flatmate, that finally sent this written.

---


Arms out, Maedhros. Slow, now. Full
White albatross span, long (still long)
Enough to tickle one end of the
sky -
Mother-of-pearl.
Cotton.
Rat fur –

and punch the rising sun at the other.


Light flutter, dark velvet sleeves.


Ill-mannered spirit children seep through
the aether to tap accusingly
on your shoulder with mist-fingers
and run away.


This is Himring.


This is where elves know neither morning nor night;
it is all day work, to build,
to spar, to hide, to seek
and know freedom.


This is where you rise
from the dust lake bowel plain
from your knees
raise your voice
raise the cry
God is so unfair!


Because he made the world with one
Twirling baton, tumti-tum,
and you – Maedhros –
also fan
five fingers out across
these hills and crack a fortress
from their icy rims.


Because others die –
Huddling, whispering shadow elves
wondering, who is he?
and orcs, and other
beings less beautiful, but you do not.


Why?
What happened to pain
and unimaginable torture and
darkness


And the push-push-push things that peeled
your whiteness off in waves like rancid cream,
like Fingon used to do
with your robes, with two light cool fingers?


And the laws that state clearly, DIE
when you cannot take it. Go when the white
and the red become like salt and blood, like
running deep cuts along your arms and
diving into the sea,
let
it
HIT
YOU!!!!!


But if you
think five fingers
are really enough
to pluck the strings
for your theme, Creation, Fortification, Destruction.
New Age, Maedhros and the Sestet
w/Royal Noldor Military Orchestra (accompanists),
maybe they are.


Maybe they are.


Beauty is so free, so removed from fear, so strong,
so intact, somehow.
So
un
fair.