Sweet Sorrow

The leaves are golden
As if
Mindful of Lórien

Red
Green
Prevailing
Or
Still prevailing
Too

The season’s name
Not having
Claimed
Them
Yet
Though some
No doubt
Have
Fallen

The golden is not gold
Though
Precious
For Celeborn
If not
For Gollum
Who
Treasured a thing
That happened
To be
Made of gold
For its
Devotion

This gold outside shall fall
Naming
The season
Even as the leaves in storied Lórien
Did fall

And so
Nostalgic
Melancholic
Glory
In the mind
For leaves from
Fictive trees
And
The leaves
Eye-to-eye like
Like
Closeness of
Pages
I suppose
Though
On the other side of actual
And slow glass

C L Couch


Photo by Doriana Popa on Unsplash

“Slow Glass” is a short story by Bob Shaw.

Lórien (Lothlórien and other names) is the Golden Wood of Galádriel and Celeborn in The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien.  (The name Celeborn with pronounced with the c like the c in “clock” or “cook”, hmm, or Couch.)

“Nostalgia” means “sweet pain,” as I was told by poet Julia Kasdorf, some years ago.