sword

(x = space)

Floods, Swords (two poems)

could read the second of them while waiting on the first

Consider Extra Floods

Jackson

And Jacksonville

Puerto Rico

Cuba

Indonesia

Pakistan

Recently, in Europe

Maybe here on Friday

The Earth warms

The polar shelves

Send sheets of ice

Into the ocean

Water rises

Storms increase

Maybe we should

Appreciate complaint

From our own

Planet

From the core to the skies

And those of us

All of us

On middle ground

Between the hell and heaven

Spirituality

Counting its own cost

In faith and lives

Of our own globe

In a waiting cosmos

Consider Broken Swords

(Lord of the Rings)

Sting was never fixed,

Which would have been bad

For marketing

Though reminding

If not teaching

Us quite rightly

For the story

That the sharpest swords

Don’t have to win the day

And brokenness and heroes

Go together

The famous sword

The one that sang for Aragorn

Is fixed by Elven smiths

And ready for the final fights

In Rohan

Osgiliath

Minas Tirith

At the Black Gate

At last

These are the heroes whom we know

The king revealed

Wanderer and healer

The sword

That has a greater name

With supernal persona

Magic

In personality,

In character

As it were

But Sting

Is in a box

In Rivendell

Until it’s brought out

For a hobbit’s use

An unknown being

Anonymity its armor

(which had served the king

for a time)

They would sting another spider

Fill with poison

Topping off the stinging burden

Of an eldritch thing

And promises

Nothing healing

‘Til the mountainside

And going in

To face the fire

Goodness, there are heroes

There are lives

That serve the world

That sacrifice all pleasures

And promises

To take on one great evil

In front of armies

On one’s own

Inside mountains

At the gate

Of hell on Earth

Of hell on Middle-Earth

For all of us, between

The small sword

Is character as well

Four heroes, as it were,

Famous

On the surface

Or unfamous,

Inside holes for homes

Then mines and caves

Tunnels without songs

Until at home again

To rest

When things are done

Awaiting passage to

A healing land

Five heroes

Add two more

Then seven

Then many more

And villainous

And in-between corrupt

Great wars to settle things

The hobbits home at last

We close the books

So are we

C L Couch

Photo by Octavian Dan on Unsplash

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