[poetry] and all the world shall hear

[glacialphoenix]

Class: Black Mage
Title: and all the world shall hear
Summary: Edward remembers Anna. Three linked poems: blank verse (well, I tried), sestina, haiku.
Characters/Pairings: Edward/Anna.
Word count: ...427. Across three poems. (103, 309, and 15 respectively.)
Rating/warnings: Canon character death? Of an admittedly minor character.
A/N: For Vanja, whose fault it is I started writing about Edward, and for Alex, who made me want to write a sestina.



I

Here I preserve this tale; long may it last,
enshrined in voice, and song, and melody.
So long I have lamented: let me rest,
let me pen my grief, gild it, and retell
your story. So minstrels immortalize
their loves - spin them into song, into tale,
That all men may listen, and remember.
I have but this one gift. Let me retain
The memory of your voice, your hair, your smile,
The way you danced. Let me inscribe your name
in song, in story, in eternity.

You should have been queen. Since this cannot be,
In song let me preserve your memory.

II

He pens lyrics to her memory.
Quill scrapes against parchment, scribing song,
straining to catch her voice.
The tune stills. He surrenders the illusion.
The fragile image of her company
slips away with the silence of his lute.

Reconstructing her image with his lute,
he stitches together the pieces of her memory,
and the memory of her company.
This is his bard’s gift: to speak, through song;
to build again the exquisite illusion
that she still lives; to hear her voice,

to see her smile. He honours her with his voice.
Night by lonely night he plays his lute,
crafts, expertly, the storyteller’s illusion;
etches deep in his words the living memory
of she who died too soon. This is her song,
her story. He will tell it again and again to company

until they grow weary of his company.
He has nothing left save his voice:
prince of a destroyed kingdom, with only song
with which to rebuild. He will play his lute;
scribe faith and love and courage into memory,
renew again the last desperate illusion

of hope. He harbours no illusions;
without her, he has none. Still, to company,
to his people, he is hope and dream and memory,
recording the history of those who have no voice,
who (like her) have gone beyond. They revere his lute,
treasure each note of his song;

history bound in music, captured in song.
And so her name will live. This is the one illusion
he allows himself, when he takes up his lute
to play. She will keep him company
in the strains of music, when again he lends his voice
to hope, to courage, to memory.

He still sings her song, imagines her company;
crafts, still, his illusions; binds, always, the echoes of his voice,
and the music of his lute, to the service of her memory.

III

he still plays his lute
in the silence of the night
all the world listens.