The sand falls softly through the glass
And golden shadows tremble...
Beyond the reach of fingers bright
A figure crouches, nimble,

But even if straightened arms should reach
And willful legs press forward,
The shaded eyes could find no space,
For frigid chains encircled.

Into the room someone must come,
The minutes sift away,
While breath of she in moonlit chamber
Escapes the same as they

Who pace the distance marked between
With busy furrowed brows,
Deciding fates of many
From minds of barren ground

That have not scope to represent
The thoughts of those born different,
To feel in phantom sense
The pains of others in the crowd

Who share the crowded length of rope
That spans our woven fates
And brushes all together
In a turning, changing place.

With night air shallow in her chest,
Silken toes search out the sill
That leads from window to window,
Away from metal barring wood,

And slips from capture to clandestine
With gently whispered prayer.
She flies down narrow stone hallways to another rigid door,
deep beneath the cast of light or air or heaven’s lore.

With waning strength of courage,
The heavy bolt is moved,
And through the narrow gap achieved
Unlikely light drifts forth

As to the eyes that rise to meet
Her roughly beating heart
And unlikely arms that reach their span
To catch her as she runs

Into the stony jaws
Of the crushing hate of man
That tears apart the lives below
To feed hunger above—

A hunger based on fear and power
That leaves no room for love
Of those beyond one’s own stone chest
Incapable of human rest,

Unfamiliar with the ache invoked
By fading melodic chord
Or hope that others in the world
Might meet the forgiveness they need—

Yes, the moment her tears fell upon his breast
In compassion that crossed their plans,
She fell afoul of these sharp teeth
And tempted reprimand

From the fates of this world
That seem to favor an everlasting strife:
The strain of the gentle against greed
That has stained the pages black.

His fingers brushing back her hair
In disbelief of golden firelight
That turned of a moment from menace to mercy
At only her appearance

Enraged them further, those fates or vanities
That ordered other roles for such as these
Of different mind and mold
In the midst of a war so many years foretold.

Even as the rumble grew, deep in heaven’s chest,
Alike to feet of heavy men in binding metal vest,
Her frightened hands worked desperately at rigid metal bonds
that held him as payment owed against their prideful laws.

To have him near after so much risked and feel his eyes upon her,
To reach without imagining and place fingertips to warmth—
To know her presence in only moments
Might become witness to fury and loss...

Her hands twisted and slipped against the chains;
Although she had no key, she knew
The mechanism was brittle
When struck firmly and logically.

With touch of grace, his arms fell free,
And soon his feet to follow,
But as she worked against the last
The fabric of luck wore thin—

The door she had left scraped wider still
Beneath broad, commanding hand
And eyes of those who judge and carve
Measured the guilt of the scene.

But even from the inward hungers
An outward heat may rise,
And he who sets the world to order for his own benefit
Can lift another in consequence of interests turned within.

Just so with the much offended heart that sheltered in chilling mail
And ordered others from the room so he might not disclose
The seeming human warmth of desire
That burned him, charring black,

To see her turn away in irrational attempt
To shelter one pre-condemned by forces far greater than him.
The way he turned her in his arms as though meant to protect,
Though the ordained roles were inverse, scraped irritation across anger’s wreck.

In the hesitation of his thought she had the time to wonder
In her mistaken, seeking heart if he might yet regard her.
Raising fragile arm to speak, she reached across the distance,
But sooner than the motion met, he ensnared her hand and wrenched

Her from the hold of hope and warmth to spill upon the floor,
Thrown back behind him as he moved in mechanical advance
As though the shape of her raised palm had shaded his heart’s complaints
And freed him from such mean distraction to act on a simpler plane.

The end was easy to trace out, he marked the other’s fatigue
From days of rigid harsh restraint and proof of heaven’s absence
When he must have known what many have known when left in pain alone.
For how many has there been no help as the pages of history turned?

In that regard he felt no shame for teaching others truths;
His move to bury privileged steel was then only conclusion
To the revelation of the savage garden he offered as he rose,
confirming self and strength as the eyes of his stable world.

The other lunged to side, but his mind was yet unfocused,
Looking long across the room where little bones had fallen,
Which may be why the straight, steeled man was able to unfoot him
With sharp restraint of iron-cast chain that wrenched him to the gravel.

The tongues of light leapt forward from the burning hearth
And played upon his fallen form as though to claim their part,
While unhurried stride brought blade up to end the thankless chore,
But even as metal fell, the light seemed to roar

In one great fearsome arc as slight hands swung the torch
That was the only savior they could reach within the dark
And brought it down across the helm of hungry, pushing fates
That so often take for granted their power in this place.

The metal then that struck the floor was not of weapon’s form
But of the man that held the blade, of steel in steel encased.
She had not strength to keep the beam from falling also aside,
And flame to tinder leapt as she to her lover’s side.

Breaking free the last restraint and holding close for balance,
He led her to the door beyond as eager sparks crawled after
Into the hall far below all that men would take for living,
Climbing rough-hewn narrow steps to break out into the morning

Still dark as all the souls of those who turn the other way
While men of power claim their rights, or so they say,
Under starless frozen skies that could not bear to lighten day
While two lost figures stumbled on without prayer of true escape.

For at the threshold they burst forth upon an inner garden
Where five young men of honor and intent reposed from golden orders
That removed from them all real account and gave them certain laws,
No need for thought or human heart, just duty soon rewarded.

Though shocked to see a woman there,
They had no misconception,
To rescue her from foreign foe
Was sure to be their direction.

Though he stepped forth in front of her,
And odd her fingers lingered
Upon the arm that shielded her
As though afraid to lose

The feeling of those moments few before he lunged away
To meet the men with makeshift staff, a rod torn from a trellis,
Keeping her safe behind him until the numbers grew,
And striding from the alley, a ghost of righteous hate

Stepped forth unannounced to bind her possessively,
His hand tight upon her throat, arching her back against him,
While the other turned in late response, abandoning his defense
To lose the ground he hard had held and witness his mistake.

Although his feet could not prevent the first few desperate steps,
He read the sorrow in her eyes and stopped before he had taken
The stride that would put him in their grasp,
The defeat that would repeat his capture.

Turning hard upon his heel he made a third direction
And leapt upon the low near wall
To mount the roof beyond with eyes drawn back,
As oft before, to her now distant form

As though he could with darkened brow cast himself there beside
In only flowing spectral shade to keep their minds drawn near
Though he knew without the need for words she did not want him here
If turning back would cost the life she had thrown her place to save.

The last she saw was that dark glance before he moved beyond
Into the unwoken space of dawn that she would never see
For knowing he would not return was darkness enough for she
Who had not found eyes she could meet with honesty until he

Crashed his way across her path one unspoken eve
When she had slipped beyond the gate
To wander among the trees, alone, an aberration
To the short paused war surrounding

That led her here in foolish thoughts of accompanying her intended,
But left her without purpose in a game of brazen postures
Until the day she froze before him,
Caught without guard or warning.

He was likewise held in perfect stillness of complete uncertainty,
Reading carefully how to react to a creature such as she,
But when a stray shot rang out from somewhere in the fortress,
She flinched in renewed dread and thrashed further into the forest

Afraid of being caught perhaps even more than he
And bearing the misfortune of knowing why a shot broke free,
The unavoidable memory of captive men dragged beyond the bailey,
Their voices ragged with exposure as they cried out desperately.

She had not run yet far enough, she heard the next report,
And desperation of her own sent her feet through thorn and dirt
Until she missed her hapless step and upward rushed the brambles,
Except his arms that caught her there just shy of stem and tangle.

She had not strength to twist away nor will to go on running;
He lifted her slowly to her feet then gently withdrew his hands,
But she could not tear her gaze from his, the quietness of his presence
Sent some strange instinct through her fingers

Which rose to trace his cheek, which bore a scar that roughened skin
In contrast to gentle features now arranged in intent confusion
But gave no sense of threat or plot that often she had seen
Behind the eyes of other faces arranged to win influence.

He slowly held his hand before him, offering his palm
To lead her from the dense surroundings back to where she perhaps belonged.
She met his hand with hand of hers and wondered at the touch,
Following how he moved his feet without crushing the forest brush.

Although the steps led back to where she so despaired to be,
His hand around hers filled her with a sense of solidarity—
A gentleness she had not found proof of for far too long a time,
A thoughtfulness that filled her breast with hope of humanity.

Just within the forest fringe she tugged him to a stop,
Keeping still her hand in his as he hesitated from the walk.
She felt her desperation not far off from the edges,
But sought to memorize him before leaving this sheltered spot.

She wondered that she should feel afraid,
That he should seek to take her
In trade for those of his own land that presence of her kind had cost,
But the sorrow that traced the lines of his face gave way to no distortion—

It was sorrow of an honest cast that pain had not construed
Into the guilt of violence so many others wore.
His face as he gazed on her withheld some unspoken wonder,
That she returned his stare so openly and held him without fear,

Without the narrow stance of caution even the wild held.
She seemed a creature all of trust, too soft to hide among men,
And bearing reason no apology for the company she arrived in.
He wondered if she did not belong more to the woods than fortress walls.

A blink erased the fallen time and once again she stood, bound,
Taking her last sight of him as the soldier turned her around
To send her slipping to the dust with one resounding blow
As he noted that it was his job to guard her virtue so

And wrenching her up by the arm strode off toward the bower
Where she began the lonely night, shut behind a wooden door
Bound around with iron, though her station bound her more.
He set her hard upon the bed, two hands upon her shoulders,

And reminded her he was her future as a promise could ensure.
As such, it would do her measureless good to learn to mind him well
And defer her needless concerns to his good countenance
As he would come to show her when dusk again should fall.

The door again was fastened tight as clouds began to pale
Beyond the narrow window, a substitute for light
Obscured by monotonous clouds, as smooth as an undisturbed sea
Implying calm as calm as the mind that rested within she,

For she had no doubt what he meant to do
And no doubt that she would be
No longer breathing in this room
When he returned to use the key.

Her thoughts replaced the gray-toned world
With the memory of gentle hands, that lifted her,
Without cause to care, and proved there can exist
Kindness among the crowd of roughened fists that tear

The lives of others to shreds to reach a moving goal,
An idea of costly progress that costs the winner a soul
Before death comes to lay him on that same unbroken plane
Where all who breathe return one day despite their ranging claims.

It did not matter then exactly when one should take their place
Among the figures strewn together below the lowering clouds
As angels drifted above them to offer final shroud
And disperse tiresome memories that kept the mind uneasy

So all would fall to rest and forget their separate needs.
The memory of kindness proven was all she wished to take
As her feet again traced the edge of that high stone window case
The pale slip around her tracing her form in the morning breeze

As though to take last familiarity before parting release.
She wondered if there may yet be those gentle, seeking arms
Somewhere far beneath the trees reaching for memory of her.
And then to end the tease of thought, she took the fateful step

Beyond the strength of masonry into the frigid air
Falling like a hunting bird to slice the pond below
And falling falling even still as the water past her flowed
Filling sight and sound with rushing that soothed and slowed.

It first visited me many years ago,
When I was only a girl.
I didn’t know then what it meant,
Or by what name to call it.

It made me feel as though all the world
Were distant from my thoughts.
Alone in my room where I would turn
I dove in to the feeling of loss.

As though I were waiting for someone far,
As though I’d forgotten my purpose,
I’d sit on the bed, apart from the world,
And wait to understand what I’d crossed.

I offered some names, to see if they fit:
Loneliness, memory, abstraction—
But nothing I said disturbed that distraction
That kept me alone and apart.

It comes to me now,
Some twenty years later—
Now and often between.

It still takes me away from the moment,
All that I’ve heard and seen.
As though gazing across the pages,
My eyes connect with selves that have been—

Looking from the past forward to now,
In questioning misapprehension,
Unable to find a reason to feel
That either time could matter

But watching it surely pass by.

We didn’t yet know ourselves,
How could we have known each other
At that young age with empty minds
And no reason to look beyond?

The world we knew was all we had,
A bright and narrow valley,
Where change was but a fiction
And the seasons never turned.

Or, never had that we yet knew
And so was bold our faith,
Our patience fixed on the hands of clocks
That swung the same slow day.

To run and meet in that shaded street
Was the sum of my ambition,
To fill quick hours with stories and flowers
Before the night could come,

And then away to forget our own threads
And write them anew tomorrow,
Toward dinner plates and familiar shapes
That kept this sky aloft—

The sky of that unchanging day
When we were unmade forms,
Tied close in our simplicity,
Without wonder that else should come.