Another night smotherest sun and day.
We playest cards for fun by candlelight.
Henceforth shalt it remain to be this way,
to never be plagued by another's plight.
I goest by the moon and stars for sport,
a hunt in wood during the darkest hour.
My greatest loyal friend protects my court,
my love sleeps soundly in the safest tower.
When I returnest on steed whence I came,
I see the smoke and rush back to my home.
My castle is consumed by growing flame;
my love hangs limply from the reddened stone.
My friend, no more, thou gaze upon it all
as the spark of fire and my dukedom's fall.

Thou dolt!  Buffoon!  Barbaric fool!  Thou hast betrayed my trust.
I stagger through the sundered stone in rooms where we'd imbibe
and cry upon the sullied ground 'midst things that hadst combust.
Enraged, I screamest in my home surrounded by thy lies.

4 haïkus across the laverie

Sun is on the stone
Wind on my face in dukedom
Seagulls glide above

Clothes are being washed
Below Caen’s castle stone walls
The wind brisk, face lit

Empty bench for bones
Aching from forceful moving
I rest in the sun

Towers and steeples
Golden over grey traffic
Two worlds touch yet not.

A troop of goats trot triple-time down a valley road,
a machinery of bells threshing the mountain air.
Little breaks the silence of the rural dukedom where
we reside. What does, gains immediate notice.

It is the happening of the moment passing through
to another place to pasture, the *******
Of the seasons. Though meadows burst with Kelly green,
and no trees have dropped their leaves, it is
autumn’s inaugural, where clouds hug the earth, mountains
curry themselves, goats scurry to new homes.

We, too, have shifted homes for a respite from the mundane.
The new now advertises surprise: This will not
appear elsewhere, will not last long enough to forget
where we came. With time, we follow the goatherd’s
abrupt call and hope to be rewarded with a golden bell.