Outside

Outside, dawn's rosy fingers massage
Life back into the stiff joints of the trees
That stand where they've stood
On gnarled roots below knobby knees
Since before satyrs stepped from the wood.

The yellow sun shines on a new day
Chasing shadows like a kitten string,
With casual disinterest feigned
For appearances. The milkmaids fling
Aside their pails and skip down the lane

Arm in arm, skirts by breezes toss'd
High over their knees to the chagrin
Of the stable-boys still deep in their cups.
Morning's fair innocence laughing comes in
Through my window and coyly disrupts

Any hope I may have of filling the page
With somber remonstrance tediously placed.
Then up with a clatter of hooves I stand,
Take up my quill, my sobriety erased
As if a snifter instead filled my hand.

And off down the lane in the sun go I
With a skip in my step and a twinkling eye.

Outside, the dusk calls the stars out to play.
The old constellations from when I was young
Hang in the firmament blinking below;
The Boar and the Owl hear the songs I have sung
And guide every step as homeward I go.



Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Sarapin, in the year 400 AF.