Nothing but time by Aerlinn

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The song of the pool beneath the stars

And they stood beside dark water full of Song and stars.

(But the waters of Tarn Aeluin were held in reverence, for they were clear and blue by day and by night were a mirror for the stars; and it was said that Melian herself had hallowed that water in the days of old.')

The lake remembers its awakening by Melian, and dreams of what came after.

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The song of the pool beneath the stars

 

My first reflection was of nightingales and starlight
I was shy still, my mirror green with duckweed
and no birds to eat it, all still sleeping in the dark
as she cleared it with her shining hands
singing a song of being, of remembering the Song.

I was young then, new-formed
my uncouth thoughts of rain and stone
No memory of longing frogsong
or sweltering cicada-filled summers
warmed then cold furrowed depths.
 
Dark, silvery, and green.
Embers of stars there must have been;
but I don’t remember any now.
None that would then come to me
cast lasting reflection into my deeps.
only dark roots drinking, deepening
what songs shadows found there must sing
whispering of far-away fires as they drained
and dark taproot tendrils stirred wild mud

But I now was stilled by gentle hands
that sung to me of growing smooth
reflective, still—of staying so the world could see
to be the eye of the high mountain, opening slowly
with the flowers to the Light.

and so learned, after so many a century
the joy of holding starlight stilled in my deeps
Oh yes, how I was silver-shot!
with many a sliver of the moon
And at last not even dread winter
could with his cold breath
stir movement
from my starred lakebed.

-

Long afterwards when I had lain deaf and mute
blinded shining beneath the newborn sun
--someone looked again, and it was night again,
her hair dark as the eyes of nightingales--
though wholly without stars;
and nothing here was singing.

Nothing about her shone; she seemed so frail a thing,
unreflected and afraid; alone.
It was dark, and so silent; as a finger came down
to touch its twin, trembling more than ember-stars
scattered on once-young waves, long since stilled--
now stirred by a single sigh, ruffling star-domed sky;
she stayed so long; I think she cried.
She taught me tears
and the taste of Sea away

(I didn’t mind—and dreamed of gulls,
learned to long for things I never knew)

At last looked up from my new scattering
with eyes her own, yet deepening
and undulating into her hair, casting there;
all the stars she could not hold,
all my memory of moons
yes I held her faithful sight; but silvering,
cold and dark, yet full of light
and memory of Song.

-

One day, she did not come,
and then came not again.
Until brown leaves drew a coverlet
over dulled stars in my lakebed.

For a long time, the straying roe-deer
alone disturbed, with dark eyes full of fear.
lost forever to the swift-footed hunter,
when she stumbled into the deep
where I wound my darkening mud to keep
her near to me, in lasting Sleep.  

-

When at last she came again, it was with someone like the Sun,
with strange fey stars lost in his eyes,
their reflections still unknown to me—
a Light I did not know how to keep.

A trembling hand strayed into her shadowed hair, hid there.
and seemed at first like a swallow to make its nest--
yet rarely –if ever- truly seemed at rest,
still Southward-bound, remembering great Seas.
And always again his eyes were cast into my pool,
of deep blue incomparable, impossible to forget,
coloring starless day-skies with deeper regrets.

And at night my faithful reflection seemed to become
instead of a comfort, a horrible wrong!
The arms with which I mirrored her, still asking for a dance
now signed of something strange
between
my little shadow and her Sun--
-- oh, I made some waves to match her sighs

but found I could not chase stars from reflected eyes.

Often still she would come alone,
sometimes long dancing toe-to-toe,
bent low towards her reflected face,
seeming to search with that deep gaze
For something I could not hold.

Often, I feared she would bend too deep
and found I did not wish for her to keep
my roe-deer company, reigning in its calls.
But tracing long waterlily lines, she stayed by me
and it was from her I learned to speak
of kings, and duty
of stern cold law.

I whispered them back to her with many-tongued reeds
to which she remained dumb, but seemed to heed
and cried for days at end.

But still I preferred her soft hand to any root
and held myself up, for all her days,
like a smoothened mirror to her sky;
wishing reflected stars to shine more strangely
bright and fell as across the wide, wild Sea.

-

That girl is long gone; and so am I
who learned to dance again, and hold more than sky

All that remains of us is a fragment of Song
faltering, fading, heard soon by none.

First whispered in my reeds when the Sea
came down to flood the sweetness of my keep
soon silenced by greater Melodies.

-

(far above a new river flows; beneath the earth,
the layers grow
of song upon song upon Song.

But whenever long taproot reaches down too deep
I call out from my starless sleep!
for her whose sorrow taught me how to speak
and sing through many mouths
now thick with sand, and set with gravel
never reaching sun or sky, or Sea
Ever pressed down by Time, into the Deep).

-

Oh starless Andreth, shadow of Song,
old Time should not move so smoothly along 
and leave no trace, allow no change of Part
for stumbling deer, for faithful hearts.

 

 

   

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Chapter End Notes

(water holds the echo of the Music, even if the song has been forgotten, and the river runs dry).