Current Track: Blabb
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

It doesn't really matter how I died.

Whether of time or tide or tiredness,

But after this, the journey of my life

I woke, to find myself in a dark wood.

The way was lost, the night was long, and I

Was more alone than I had ever been.


It really doesn't matter how I died.

It grows more difficult for memory

To conjure up the details. I recall

A quiet, as if all the world had moved

Into another room, somewhere downstairs.

There was a lightness, like the vertigo

When you have fallen only half asleep.

There was a calm, and time slowed, and I saw

A far green country, there across the sea.

I can't recall if I died near the sea,

But I recall my first glimpse of that shore.

The silver mist that parted. The white peaks

Turned saffron by the touch of setting sun.

The forests so dark green they could be black.

The sheets of rain, that flowed across the knees

Of mountains like a standing wave, and smeared

The light they caught into prismatic flames.

I can recall no pain. If pain there was

However much, however long, it was

Entirely left behind, like life, in life.


It does not matter, truly, how I died.

What matters is the sunset found me there.

I glimpsed him through the trees. I followed him.

His eyes were sad and bishop-serious

And each was an entire sunset landscape.

He led me to a house I had not seen

But knew as if I'd lived there all my life.

He opened wide the door. The dark within

Was warm and welcoming, and promised rest.

And when I hesitated on the step

He turned his wolfish head to me and spoke.

“And why do you hang back? I know your heart.

Each day that you drew breath, you longed for home.

You sought for home, you fought for home. You mourned

When ended were your days all homeless still.

But now, behold. You have at last come home.

And never need you carry grief again!

Come in, and lay it all to rest upon

Your father's breast. Come shelter in these arms,"

His eyes were sad, and bishop-serious,

“However much of ages without end

It shall require to wash your grief away."

And aye, I longed indeed for hearth and home.

And aye, my eyes were wearied much with grief.

And aye, he was my father, though we had

Never before this met, though he was wolf

And sunset both, which I was neither one.

But yet I hesitated. I said some

Small mewling words to the effect that I

Did not believe that I deserved the love

And fatherhood, and home, he offered me.
“I do not know if you deserve my love.

Why would I know if you deserve my love?
Why would you ask if you deserve my love?

You have my love." He said. “You are my son."

He spoke it into being, and it was.

And I was. I could feel the bloodline spread

From him through me, delivering me from this

The body of my death to one like his:

Blood of cool crimson sunlight turned to dew,

Body of claw and tail and midnight pelt.

And peace he laid upon my mourning soul…


...and in my father's house I shall remain.

Until the day when I must come to thee

To lay the paw that I received from him

Upon thy fevered brow. To calm thy fears.

To cool thy frantic struggles as they fade.

To shut thy eyes, and open them again

And wake thee to a new world with a kiss.

To tell thee, do not fear this newer world:

It doesn't matter, really, how you died,

What matters is the work is done, the strife

Is all completed. Now but follow me:

Behold, across the sea, the promised land

Where I will lead you home. Where you may lay

Your grief to rest upon my father's breast,

And never need you be alone again.