Songs for the Seasons by losselen

Late November

Late November
Elrond for Arwen, after he sailed for the West

I.

Once you walked among the flowers. Once in your walking you named them. The primrose, the fritillary-- in the spring they lilted. Summer followed and thistles bowed in the rufous heat. Then wild anemones, in late November, flowed their petals into the loud-syllabled Bruinen, until snowdrops dotted all the banks in a new spring, and we counted our seasons by our flowers. So I remember you, walking in the valley, glad and warm in the flying light.

II.

My daughter, I see you still. In the wide night among the immortal woods, when a memoried wind comes from the east. I find you seated, pensive in a glade, where blooms of elanor rock in the windfall light, and the wildgrass furrows in the undying breeze.

And then the pale stars will shiver in their high places, hesitating in the locks of your hair, and you stand, and you turn to me, and I remember that you came not to these lands.

III.

In my heart I see the falls of Imladris shimmering in the autumn. Where do you walk now? For once you walked in the eaves of time, in the silvered lines of his eyes. For once you and he, both my children, walked and laughed with each other, in the fields of memory.