::: A caprice for two feathers, whisper, and shrieking brass :::

Plick! goes the plume, and the plan goes plop!
The guildhall rocks and the ravens cry STOP!
A lady in scarlet, with nothing to say,
Has come to arrange us. Stand out of the way!

Plim-plam! Plim-plam! goes the silver pin;
She trims the outside and hollows within.
A thought has two feathers? She plucks them for show.
An idea has roots? She orders them NO!

In Ashtan: A flutter! In Hashan: A hiss!
In Cyrene: A list of the things amiss!
In Eleusis, the leaves must be clipped into rows;
In Mhaldor, the iron must bend at her nose.

Plickety-plackety-prune it!

Plock!

"I'm only improving."

Plick!

"I'm only a friend."

And the whisper goes whirring around the next bend.

"My darling, your confidence-leave it with me."

Snip!

And it hangs from a hook in the hall of decree.

Not I! says the Lady. Not I! says the lace.
The plume makes a fan of the whole hiding-place.
Not I! cries the bonnet. Not I! cries the shoe.
But the ink has her fingers, and the fingerprints too.

A letter.

A witness.

A whisper.

A name.

The plume stops its prancing.

The candles turn lame.

"YOU LIE!"

And the rafters go RATTLE-TE-ROAR!

"YOU LIE!"

And the hinges leap out of the door.

"YOU LIE!"

And the bells of the city reply-

"WHO?"

And the Lady, who never had answered for why,
Goes shrill as a kettle and splits up the sky:

"I NEVER! I NEVER! I NEVER!"

The plume beats the air into scarlet confetti;
The guilds bolt their doors; all the ravens are ready.
She shrieks at the witness, the window, the wall-
And the wall, being sensible, says nothing at all.

Plick.

No answer.

Plock.

No decree.

The plume twitches once.

The world declines to agree.

She lifts up her chin; she prepares to revise
The shape of the silence, the sound of the skies-

But the silence stays silence.

The sky stays the sky.

And the plume, with a shiver,

Forgets how to fly.

Penned by my hand on the 14th of Sarapin, in the year 1017 AF.