[This is a fanfic poem I wrote, when I had a realization about something that I had missed for years in reading the book]
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Deep-scratched furrows scoring the earth
A shower of damp clots and decaying leaves
And a long thin hole, the size of a carrot.
The Unnamed Fear,
of which none are suffered, ever, to speak
has struck again.
Odd how it is possible, even yet,
to close one's eyes.
To ignore. To Pretend.
So long as it is some other rabbit;
So long as it does not hit too close to home.
Within the burrow- our burrow- I wait.
She does not return.
Nildro-hain...
No. Surely not.
Surely, surely, she is
simply above ground
Feeding, gathering flayrah
Getting better acquainted with the newcomers.
Not my beautiful
beloved
Nildro-hain.
Day passes.
Ni-Frith turns to late afternoon
And still no Nildro-hain,
no cherished mate appears.
As the evening shadows lengthen
I can deceive myself no longer.
The others gather in the great burrow
to exchange stories, poems;
Night falls, over the fields and woods
Over my eyes
Over my heart.
Dawn.
Woken to a commotion, a clamor.
The small, melancholy rabbit,
him they call Fiver,
is causing a disturbance.
Despondent no longer,
no trace of hesitation
Now he is all energy,
Calling out to rouse Frith and Inlé;
Yet he does not rouse the warren,
save to a stony indifference.
Quietly now I hear him tell Cowslip
they are going
Away
To the hills.
Away! To the Hills!
Something in the words
breaks though my tharn-struck grief.
That's It! Suddenly I know:
I have to follow. Somehow, I must
convince them to let me come too.
...There is nothing left for me here.
Blindly I race to catch them up
Desperation driving me on
They may tear me to pieces-
no less than I deserve
for the part I have played here-
But that, or anything, is more endurable
than to remain behind
in this warren of snares.
Take me with you!
The plea of my soul
echoes the words
of the poet the night before
It is met with
Silence.
Rejection.
An injunction to return-
—to Nildro-hain!
The sound of her name pierces me through;
It compels me to speak!
To explain her fate,
To win admittance to the group which is
the only possible life for me now,
I force myself to say
(what I can scarcely manage to whisper)
the utterly forbidden words:
’The wires.’
Then.
At last.
Hazel.
Welcome.
A chance for a new start
A new home
and to leave the past behind
- Bereft... but, finally, free.
Topic: Strawberry's Silent Lament (Read 628 times)