Bridge

(revised after mesa regression 10/18/13)

BRIDGE

Adam Stuart Littman

1

This is an almost sacred place

The forest glade and bubbling brook

The stream beside the cottage floor

The vision in the door

And twixt the stream and forest glade

The bridge

The bridge I built

I built for my love Tarnigall

"You see me now, my love." She said

"You see me as I'll always be

You see me now in memory

You see your love, your Tarnigall."

"No do not fight these endless wars

No do not fight on foreign shores

If so you lose me ever more

You lose your love

Your Tarnigall"

The children we envisioned play

'Neath skies of blue and skies of gray

And playing smiles pass away

The smiles so like my Tarnigall

And so, beside my love I stayed

While others at their killings played

Mistaking threats for sheep that brayed

Ignoring them for Tarnigall

A Coward and a Traitor called

With hatred plain on faces bald

What mattered then if honor galled

My honor’s for my Tarnigall.

“There is no cause to fight.” She said

Her face alight with rage’s Red

“Come fight for me, here, in this bed.”

The wisdom of my Tarnigall!

“You know of war. You owe us this.”

They came each day, and thus they’d hiss.

“You owe your people, Owe your Miss

You Owe it to your Tarnigall.”

“We are not of your kind!” She cried.

“We are but two once left behind,

I do not mean to be unkind

Leave now.” Said my brave Tarnigall.

“We have no cause to fight for you

To fight for petty tyrants who

Would rise on others ‘neath their shoe.”

Accused my foolish Tarnigall.

“My Love is meant for so much more

My Love won’t fight your pointless war

My love won’t deign to cross this shore.”

So doomed us both

My Tarnigall.

Yet still refusing to relent

Each day a higher noble sent

But wasted words were all they spent

Upon my deafened Tarnigall.

At last there came a dreaded knight

He hid from shadows, hid from sight

As we lay sleeping in the night

He came for her, for Tarnigall

When I awoke there was no sound

The blood was all my senses found

My sword pinned through her in the ground

My sword that slew my Tarnigall

Not three days hence he came to me

The Tyrant dressed in finery

“This work is of the enemy!

You must avenge your Tarnigall.”

Yet in his face I knew the lie

And in the twitching of his eye

Across the bridge his banners fly

The bridge I built

I built for my love, Tarnigall

Know this for true

My Lords and Dams

The grief, the pain, and all the plans

You make for those you rule shall fall

I swear to be the end of all

Your plans bereft me of my love

Your plans deny all light above

Your plans destroyed good Peace’s dove

Your plans destroyed my Tarnigall.

II

She spoke to me from ‘neath the tree

Where I had lain her peacefully

“Do not defile my memory.”

Thus spoke the spirit, Tarnigall

Her painted gore still stained my sword

I knelt there still without a word

And wept at notions so absurd

As hearing my dead Tarnigall.

The trees they whispered in her voice,

They whispered of another choice.

But hearing nothing but a noise

I rose before my Tarnigall.

I looked upon our sacred place

The forest glade and bubbling brook

The blood upon the cottage floor that pooled

Beyond the door

And twixt the reddened stream and glade

The bridge

The bridge that killed my Tarnigall.

I looked my last upon the sight

And turned my heart to blackest night

“They say they want to see me fight?

I’ll fight for my lost Tarnigall.”

I crossed the bridge immersed in though

Too quiet was the work I’d wrought

Less sturdy and I might have caught

The dead one took my Tarnigall

I locked such thoughts far from my mind

And rode to where I knew I’d find

The lying tyrant and his kind

My sword would speak for Tarnigall

I found them heavy in their feast

The Lords, the Ladies, and the Beast

From greatest to the very least

As if to mock my Tarnigall

I moved unnoticed into play

I set the bar to lock the way

And then commencing to the fray

I took their lives for Tarnigall

No pleasure drove me in the deed

Only an incoherent need

A hole I took their souls to feed

Where once resided Tarnigall

They had no cunning to resist

Their warring soldiers sorely missed

As with my blade each one was kissed

The razor lips of Tarnigall

I saved the Tyrant for the last

Approached him frozen and aghast

I’d Stol’n his future and his past

As he had Stol’n my Tarnigall

I took him by his golden band

And willed his mind to understand

Twas never fear that stayed my hand

What stayed me had been Tarnigall

The Tyrant’s head fell to the floor

My misery let forth a roar

I would be lost forever more

Be lost without my Tarnigall

I propped my sword against the throne

Embraced it there with but a groan

Then finally with tears that shone

I died there for my Tarnigall

I dream of still, that sacred place

A forest glade, a bubbling brook

The stream beside the cottage floor

The vision in the door

And twixt the stream and forest glade

The bridge.

The bridge I built

That leads me home

To Tarnigall.

ASL 10/2013 All rights reserved.