Dar Aelslandin

Poemata XCIX

Author’s note: Everything about this story is fictional. “Aelslan” does not exist.

I walk in the morning among the trees
Where towering shadows and shifting breeze
In bowers half-lit of gold poplar stand
And signal the inways of old Aelslan;

In lanes that were long left to linger there
Untarried by man and untouched by care
Where grasses uncut with ripe kernels wave
And work through long ages the way unpaved;

Such gardens o'ergrown yet ungovern'd lay
And lost 'neath eaved houses, unhurried day
left darkened in corners of decks and stairs
Mute shade in brown clusters and silvery pairs;

Blank windows still peer whose glass-panes now glint
And guessing at numbers which never hint
As having closed doors, the old dwellers show
No sign that they left, but uncertain tho';

As empty at dawn ev'ry drive does seem
And signs pointing nowhere with names that mean
To me not a thing that I may recall
So come to a stop astride a wall;

It girdles a hill whose now-heavy crown
Is tangled with roots and such trees that frown
And full of dark leaves branches lean about
Suburban enclosures encased with doubt;

I follow no road but must find my way
By walking such byways this break of day
So ducking through fences and dodging sight
And summit such walkways that shade the light;

No car can be seen that might sit unsought
Nor cycle nor trailer to save I've caught
No cold empty eyes sad and chilling feel
No friend is this realm to the rolling wheel;

With silence my partner, companion, none
No noise of such animals under sun
Half-sunken or risen might running see
No sound of the flying, no friend but me;

In Aelslan its said that bright autumn lasts
For longer than mem'ry, unmeasur'd pasts
Have perished in Aelslan, to pull the thorn
On twin-budding roses their Rex has worn;

No folly in Aelslan befouled their cheer
In Cul Aelslandin they have closed the year
With yearning for sorrows that strike the heart
And happy their canticles always start;

That marvels they have no mere man denies
Undaunted in art, but inept in lies
Aelslan the great master, the mirror's gaze
Ungreeted in Aelslan, Al-Giri says;

And sojourning, signs of that secret land
In bowers half-lit of gold poplar stand
Where towering shadows and shifting breeze
I walk in the morning among the trees.