LadyBandra

 “Go ahead, make your choice. The outcome will decide whether you’re ready or not.”        Puzzled, Llanyi re-read the note out loud. She glanced back at her companions, uncertain what to say. "I... I could have sworn the map said it was just here," she began, fumbling for words as sudden fear constricted her throat.        The impassive countenances of three stoic thieves stared back at her, daring her to make a single wrong step. They could easily wring her neck and dump her back in the sewers for leading them on a wild goose chase.        The dry air and dark confines of the tomb suddenly closed in on Llanyi, and sh

All dark with age, riddled with dents, wormholes the smoothness mar- and still your wood endures, though worn by a hundred years thus far. A scar runs through your simple scroll once cracked, mended with care your pegs are stiff, and must be tuned with patience and to spare. But someone carved you lovingly your curves speak grace and skill your wood is true, your tone faithful neither wolfish nor shrill. A golden sheen is hid beneath your patina of age of tears, and dust, and sweaty toil as stoic as a sage and in your tone the selfsame glow becomes a vibrant ring as bold and rich as honeyed wine or soft and sweet as spring. Perhaps the t

A tomb is filled-- the world lies empty-- breathless, tearless, lifeless night. The sun cannot illuminate such profound absence of all light. Birds, o hush your raucous mourning; wind, o still your wailing psalm let the silence be your tribute let Him rest in perfect calm. Pierced, reviled, mocked, rejected cold and pale His body lies; finest linen wraps His bruised limbs, by His own blood now sanctified. A tomb is filled-- the world is empty stripped of lies, laid bare again; o grief too deep for tears or wailing cleanse the broken souls of men.

And so... a simple vial of ink pours out its all, its sooty blood and watches clean white paper drink-- absorb an all but endless flood of thoughts, of words and songs and sighs that from the poet's pen stream out unbidden, to his hand they rise all eager to be formed, to shout their meaning clear to all the world in tendrils of unyielding black against the smooth and soulless fold of pages waiting in a stack. The precious liquid lasts for years but ever dwindles the supply of inspiration, ink and tears and so... the font at last runs dry.

She twines a silken ribbon through her slender fingers fair and lets the questing, wandering wind blow boldly through her hair in shining waterfalls which pour o'er shoulders slim and white as her eyes reflect the sadness of the evening's dying light. The truth she seeks will wrap her close in folds of radiant day, but now, and here, the ideal seems a thousand years away a mere girl's whim, a foolish thought to while away the hours and as such to be discarded with the other wilted flowers. The burning rim sinks closer to the edge of inky night the dusky sky is stained with blood from Sun's last valiant fight against the silent vanguard of t

spring; it is a single ray of sunlight through the trees it is the cooing of a dove the flitting of a breeze the shiver of a thousand spears of sharp and poignant green at their first taste of azure sky by rainstorms scoured clean the warbling of a gleeful finch the gurgle of a stream the smell of earth and rain and life all strange as in a dream and though I had a million words and a thousand empty books no page that I could pen would e'er describe one humble nook of those that hide between the roots of mighty old oak trees and shelter timid lily-cups to tempt the gold of bees nor could my erring pen evoke if, daring, I aspired the glor