Bonfires by Lferion

Vanities

A song -- a Song -- of defiance
A poem and a double drabble

----

Prompts -
-- Tolkien Short Fanwork May prompts Bonfire and Songs of defiance.
-- Vintage: Lit:I1 Dark & Stormy, Art:B4 Engraving/etching, Poetry: N1 Aubade, Fanwork:B1 Apocafic

*** *** ***

Burning books has never stopped ideas
Burning dissidents has never stopped dissent
Burning pestilence has never stopped the plague

It only spreads

Smoke goes where it will, borne on the wind
Gets in eyes and ears, in mouths and minds
And issues forth again, all the more incendiary

Never less

*** *** ***

In the rain-wet darkness, Maglor considered the roughly scratched words around the base of the statue of a stern-visaged figure in formal Judgement robes, presiding over a bonfire of so-called vanities. Proscribed books, forbidden relationships, wicked substances, tools, behaviors, ideas. The figure resembled Namo, but only in the shadow of form, not in substance.

The words were much more important. There was defiance, creativity, even hope in those verses, the beats in the lines. This darkness too would pass, (no telling how long it would take, how much travail would be involved). A tune for the words, though. That would help (had helped before, would be effective again) to carry the defiance, the resolve, the hope as a voice on the wind, getting everywhere, subtle and insidious, smoke signals, everywhere, nowhere, infectious, ubiquitous, intangible, impossible truth, hope, life.

He set to work. It would be in the Song by morning.

*** *** ***