Bilbo

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)

Sting Broke

Does no one remember?

A stab into a spider

(giant, venomous)

And it lost the end, the point

That brought it home

Goodness, but the blade was useful, after

Sharp along the edge, shining blue

With Elven-warning about

Goblins, virtued like the partial blade that

Sting was helpful

And meant something

The aspect was a message

That the merchandising missed

(sorry, I like my t-shirts and believe

what’s on my purchased button, Frodo Lives)

The broken blade still works

When we are broken, we still work

And maybe all of us are parts

In prophecy

Narsil reforged

Something returns

Other things will be remade

But for now, even in parts, we

Can take on foes and win

We persist

C L Couch

X-ray of the reconstructed sword from the Viking boat burial at Ardnamurchan.

Pieta Greaves, AOC Archaeology – Mike Addelman, Faculty of Humanities, University of Manchester. Sent by email to the uploader., CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17036697

On the morning of the last day Frodo was alone with Bilbo, and the old hobbit pulled out from under his bed a wooden box. He lifted the lid and fumbled inside.

‘Here is your sword,’ he said. ‘But it was broken, you know. I took it to keep it safe but I’ve forgotten to ask if the smiths could mend it. No time now. So I thought, perhaps, you would care to have this, don’t you know?’

He took from the box a small sword in an old shabby leathern scabbard. Then he drew it, and its polished and well-tended blade glittered suddenly, cold and bright. ‘This is Sting,’ he said, and thrust it with little effort deep into a wooden beam. ‘Take it, if you like. I shan’t want it again, I expect.’

Frodo accepted it gratefully.

The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 2, Chapter 3, “The Ring Goes South”

Contributor:
Elena Tirie

http://www.henneth-annun.net/events_view.cfm?evid=1096