The power of a voice is
like a light, in the darkness,
if spoken in love.

The sound of a whisper
spoken quiet in fear is
like the softly sharp sound,
of a scissor snipping velvet,
in sounds absence.

The tenor of a song, sung sweetly
in the silver light, in the welling
brightness of the fair moontide, is
scarcely to be described.

the cadence of the laughter of
a child in joy, is a thing to be
yearned for, and ever received.

The tears of a woman, weeping
softly in the dark; an ache in the heart,
a grief to the soul.

The power of a word is like a
bell in the silence, like the light,
like the darkness, and like the
silence returned.

The power of a word is
in the hearts of all, in the
voice and in the heart, if
spoken in tones of earnest
passion, if spoken in careful
thought.

Trees here, some old, some young;
weathered stone and pale sky.
Leaves, yellow red and orange
faded; lifted from the edge of the
high stone cliff by the wind, skirling,
there on the reach, between Earth and
Sky.

I rest beneath the spreading bows,
an oak, ancient in in life, in the living
earth, wise in the ways of growing. Wheat
surrounds us, I and the tree, together an island
amid the shifting gold, swaying in a gentle breeze,
born of the hazy south, warm and kind. The sun shines
down, as it sinks to meet the flat horizon, and fall beneath
the world. Clouds streak the sky, as the blue yields to the gold
of sunset. The birds are singing. And I wake, to behold the dawn,
and I hear the birds singing, as they too wake with the light.

Winter, Weather,
Snow and Heather,
Freeze and Feather;
Owl swifting, white
of wing. Cold and ashes,
Love and slashes,
Fire bright in the wintry
night.

To her side I laughing fell,
there in the violets, and in
the warmth of summers noon.
Love burned in my straining
breast; light reflected in the beauty
of her smile. We ran in that pagan
sunlit idyll; Life, the race and the
scented joy, as we ran in the grass,
in the light, and in laughter. Lovely, she,
in sunlit grace. Our joy the limit of
life and sky.

Still lovely, she, in death, as in life.
Lovely still, as she is laid to her rest,
down among lilies and lilacs and silk,
and amidst the tears of the living, bereft
in their joy, of the life and the youth and
the laughter that was she. I cry out in a
broken voice, "Allele! Remember the joy
and the summer and the wind in the trees!
Remember the long days laughing in the
shade of the oak, of the leaves and the
breeze and the waterfall splashing! Go not
softly into the dark tomorrow. Take your life
with you. Do not end in the darkness, alone,
in the darkness." Whispered the last, voice rough
in sorrow. And I wept, there, in the summers starlit
dark.

She stands there by the open window,
its mornings gray that lights her face.
her curls are long and fair and golden,
dulled by the light of the cold winters
morning; truthful in its stark demean.
Her face is pale and fair and lovely;
dark shadows circle her eyes, and her
eyes are gray, cold as the dawn, as they
watch the procession of men down the
road; in black are they robed, and their
cowls are dark. Her figure is lovely, or
was lovely, once; angles there are, and her lines
are hard and stark and sharp. Tall she stands
in the wasteful light, her pride a mantle, to
hold back the tide. Dressed in a sheet of
shimmering gray, almost she would blend into
the grey dawning morn, were it not for her hair,
though lackluster and shorn; longer it was in
summers fair past, till she cut it with shears and
shivers and hate. The cowled procession slows
to a stop, before a man and a pit and a naked tree.
He speaks in a voice of resonance and power; not
a tear is shed in that makeshift bower, not a tear,
not a whisper, not a head bowed in grief, for the
man they had carried. They spared him no pity; he
had shown none in life. The woman watches from
the empty tower, no tears shed there in her ancient
bower. Cold she stands in the cold morning grey,
robed in power and pride, and great beauty, past.
She watches as they lower her dead lord inside, no
coffin, he; too many had he broken. She watches
in silence, in pain, and in pride, foolish though it be
in the grey mornings light. Dirt over him. Dirt under.
A paupers grave, in a field, in winter. No honor in death;
he had had none in life. Last shovelful thrown; the ground
is smoothed over. The priest and his men leave the grey field
empty, save a tree in the center, stark in death.
she watches, and remembers, and falls in her folly, in her cold,
prideful folly, to join him in death, who had murdered her love.
To join him, though he it was who had murdered her love, and her joy and her dreams, and her young, laughing beauty. Fallen she, through prideful
folly.

Love, the fairest, purest joy.
To hear the laughter, high
and sweet, and to see her
running, swift and fleet, as
she flies for the joy,and for
love of the race. Long is her
laughter, fair is her face; her
form expression of poise and
grace, lovely, she, in the dying
light, as she stands there caught
between rest and flight. Lovely
still as night comes on, lovely as
darkness hides her form, lady fair
and pure and sweet, lady; I will
wait for the dawn.