Fan poetry. Yikes.

[letterblade]

Something I wrote for the MC September Mystfic challenge (a character remembers an important event in the past and how he/she was changed by it).

Spoilery for the Book of Ti'ana.

And, yes, it's a sestina, because I'm insane and like writing sestinas.


Reministina - Anna - "Choose Life!"

She knew. She knew he'd been swallowed by fire
Before her fingers had touched the Book,
Before she'd drawn back thick parchment
To bare the window upon creation,
Destruction, victory, death,
Where her beloved had lead the Philosopher.

It was right, she told herself, that the Philosopher
Should burn, though he had given no fire
To D'ni, only a misty cloud of slower death,
Wracking pain, desecration of Books,
No promise of life or creation
In his future, only cruelty in parchment.

Her beloved condemned by mere marks on parchment,
The ineffable link written for the Philosopher--
For a moment she hated the magic creation
Of Ages, wanted them all to burn in the fire
That took her husband, wanted a furnace of Books,
Red light for her screams, give all to death.

But that would tilt the victory, to make a harlot of death
And smear with blood every inch of parchment
Of every page of every Book
In all the city--that would be a Philosopher's
Triumph, to condemn the universe to fire,
Lifeless lava, no whisper of Aitrus' creation.

She shrieked with the pain of choosing creation,
For it was so simple to fall into death,
To forget that the apocalypse is the fire
Of creation, rebirth of the soul, even if parchment
Burns as easily as a flailing Philosopher--
But the language of the soul embodies, transcends, the Book.

She will consecrate herself to the Book,
She thinks later, to life and creation,
And to writing over the stain of that Philosopher
Who denied life and brought her beloved death--
And with creation her son, Gehn, pale as parchment,
Just like Aitrus, and in his soul Aitrus' fire.

She will walk away from the Philosopher and never look back to that altered Book.
Her beloved is long taken by the fire, leaving their lone split-souled young creation.
She will triumph over death with every scrape of pen on parchment.

Comments

[weemallard.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's gorgeous! Sestinas are so very easy to do badly, so very hard to do with grace. Bravo!

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

It's only my second. I should do them more often. It's such a fun exercise in double meanings, extra ramifications of words, that sort of thing. And I've always been fond of ritualistic repetition.

(Do you know the book in question, out of curiosity?)

[undomeramie.livejournal.com]

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

Awww. Thank you!

Mind if I friend you? (She asks belatedly.) Sudden urge to have more Myst people on my fiendslist.

[undomeramie.livejournal.com]