clcouch123

There and Back and There Again
(22 September)

It’s Sunday
It’s fall

And the light of the full moon
(should there be)
On Durin’s Day
(should it be)
Might illuminate the secret parts
Of maps
For our adventures

But it’s the hobbits’ birthday
For our attention
Now
Of two hobbits
Born on the same date

With the first fellow
Visited by
Dwarves
Who called for
Cake
And what is
A seedcake
Anyway

There was music first
And then a plan
To find a realm
To find a base
To find the horde
Inside the mountain where
The throne resided
Too
And
By the way
A dragon
In the way

Then was the second one
Years later
Who took his uncle’s ring
To a deadened land
With a volcano
Into which
To throw the ring

You see
The ring was more than magic

It was power
The kind that Acton said
Corrupts
Entirely
And Frodo
And his friend
Samwise
With allies
Several
At first
Quested through corruption
To get there
To this mountain
To destroy the thing

That
Took the easier story
(tell Bilbo’s buttons)
Into
Perforce
An epic situation

And all the armies of the Earth
Came
Or didn’t come
To Pelennor
Then to the northern gate
Of Mordor

Great battle
Great losses
Final victories

Though it was the hobbits
Who saved everything
At last
Wounded
And wounded again
With the assist
Of an eldritch creature
Half-hobbit
Perhaps
Who fell with the ring
Into the fire

Rescued by giant Eagles
And wouldn’t that
Be something

Then Frodo
And his friend
Could not stay in Middle-Earth
Though they lived there
For
A while longer but
Finally
Set sail
With other heroes
Toward a land of blessing
Land of healing
Over the sea
Like Avalon
To Valinor

We live there
Where the hobbits
With the others
Trod
And where hobbit-peers
Might be hiding behind trees
Out of
The classic
Corners of our eyes

For
Middle-Earth
Is our Earth
And us

So
Happy Birthday
Bilbo
Frodo
Regards of a thankful
Planet
That now
Would like to party
For you

Still wondering
What a seedcake
Might be
(okay
I can look it up
and
well
the Victorians
liked it
and there are
recipes
and other lands
and times
where I’m sure
we like it
too)

C L Couch


Photo by Lucas Gruwez on Unsplash
(as I recall, the house of Samwise has a yellow door)