Seasons [ADDED] [Added OB]

[Jacurutu]

Seasons
by Argellus Rutulo

True Harvest

A scent of overripe vegetables
and hearth-fires
saturated the crisp air,
and the sun fell more quickly each day,
withdrawing and refraining
from sharing in the bounty.

A shallow coffin
was made in the town's middle
The timber-craftsman fashioned
a makeshift wooden tent embroidered
with dying tree-bark and knobs
for handles in the town's center.
His three children gathered the trimmings
from a nearby clearing,
playing and singing as they went.

Three bards,
armed in dark garments
and each wielding a sharp-tuned lute
formed a line by the town hall,
their faces alight in
anticipation.

The butcher
held the sow tenderly
by her throat, breathing "please
forgive me" to her ears as he swiftly
pulled the knife. Somewhere else, a soldier
chiseled dried red from his armor
with his dulled broadsword.
Looking upwards,
he sighed.

She squirmed and squealed,
but his grip was tight and quiet,
and eventually her protests ceased,
her lungs filling with blood.
Tied by her twitching feet,
she drained in the chilling wind.

The villagers gored her fresh corpse
with a spit above that fiery tent,
the children awaiting the time when
the harvest came full-circle.


Nadir

The horizon, empty and vague,
sprawled across the mountain edges.
A lone paladin, his head slumped
forward, the weary legs of his old
horse about to buckle,
a wisp of vapor rising from his mouth.
At his side hung a steel helm,
from his face hung loose flesh.

A lovely doe, donned
in the dead of night
and laced in moonlit frostbite
lay still on the frigid ground.

The barren soil hardened over,
the lands were tilled no more,
and the butcher's cleaver
hung frozen in the toolshed.
A yellow-tailed fish
cowered in an eddy of summer warmth,
frost moving in about its body.

A decaying tree, its branches thin
as smoke's silhouette,
trembled like a drunken beggar
left beneath a tavern frieze
shivering, his eyes glazed before empty streets.

His superior officer pinned
the paladin with a gleaming golden badge,
a stray dog bit in relief
the iced doe's skin,
a hungry farmer plucked the terrified fish
from the freezing water,
and the daring orphan pulled a few coins
from the beggar's moneybag.


Dew Laden Blades

The purest water always
ran down from the mountains
as grass blades and verdant glades
sprouted into full bloom,
a burst of white and violet orchids
lilting in the zephyr.

The bounty of orchards and vineyards
lay supine across our table.
My daughter and her lover creeping
away from breakfast, –
can they not contain themselves? –
but what can a father do?
Innocence will flake away
like skin from dry scalps.

The purest waters inevitably
find their way into bogs,
disease-ridden marshes,
or down the throat of a murderer,
stooping to cleanse his blade
and pirate a bit of liquid.


Heartworm

This heartworm starts
so tame, almost precious
in its slightness,
rocking in the delicate
breath of the west,
a caress from the seas
around Hammerfell and High Rock.
Its soft fur,
like flowing pastures,
so addictive to the touch.
But even a tamed beast
can turn feral.

Such is the heartworm.
In its rage, it turns
upon all things,
drains the very lands
and good people
it once endeared,
scorching heart and mind alike.

Once it's taken its fill,
the beast slinks away to die
and pour forth its belly
into foundations for the world.


Note on the heartworm: This insect, native to northern Argonia and to a lesser extent the southeastern reaches of the Imperial Province, starts out in a larval stage in the guise of a mammal similar in appearance to a miniature feline with an elongated body. However, it's "fur" actually provides nutrients for its future shell during its later development. After undergoing a cocooned metamorphosis, this creature emerges as an eyeless beast with an exceptionally hardened outer shell. It moves about on four, short but incredibly powerful legs. Its primary prey include lizards, birds, and young children, which it captures by waiting in hiding and pouncing upon, delivering a flesh-diffusing poison spray from its mouth that kills its victim by a massive cardiac paralysis. In this dangerous stage, it can grow to enormous sizes; some of the most ancient are reported to be as much as eight feet in length and twelve feet in circumference around the mid-section. When the creature dies, its body dissolves surprisingly quickly, almost as though it were created for such an act, returning itself into the soil.
From time to time, laymen and laywomen have kept the larvae as pets. However, once the creature emerges from its cocoon, it usually turns upon its previous masters.

[Haplo]

4.B..

TrBook1PoeSeasons

[Xui'al]

"Haploicus, to BoT, or not to BoT?"

[Haplo]

Why, to BoT, of course. It's actually written as a response to my shorter 'the Seasons' poetry book.