The Poems of Madam Albithurst: Lady Song

And there we were, in the darkness.

Surrounded. Alone. The five of us together.

No hopes, no dreams, nothing but the uncertain truth of our situation.

There was a pool of light we could not see.

A howling scream we could not hear.

Children, children everywhere, grabbing and laughing and crying.

Thousands dead, thousands more alive.

A singular moment stretched on into infinity.

We were now, and then, and to become. It was everything I ever wanted. It was Hell.

And there was Lady Song, in the belly of the abyss. And this is what she said to us:

“I am Lady Song, she of backward days. I was born in the throat of an innocent girl, singing her youth while she played by her mother in the garden. It was a warm spring day, the perfect day for life, and when the child had finished singing me, I wondered what else life held for one such as I. Could innocence remain in the world? Or was it doomed to crumble away like snake-skin, cast aside when it had outlived its use?”

“And so I began my journey, wondering who I was and who I would become. Searching for innocent innocence, I came along a wandering brook. I followed the brook for some time, for I thought it innocent true.”

For the brook does not question where it goes, it simply flows, it simply flows. And by its side, the river wide, I wandered along all merry.

“But as my feet grew weary, for feet I now had, I wondered at the innocence of the river. Though it travels without question, it travels without pain. No matter the rocks thrown in its depths, it steps aside and laughs its babbling laugh, and there it flows again.”

“Is it truly innocence, when all you do is step aside? The brook can feel no pain, so its innocence can never be lost, but what is innocence that cannot be lost? Can it truly be innocence at all?”

“So after resting for a while, my feet in the cool soothing waters, I took my leave of the babbling brook, and set out again on my journey.”

“I set my sights, for eyes I now had, on the distant town far away from where I walked. A long journey would suit me well, I believed, for the road would always be beneath me, and the horizon always ahead. I knew I could stop at any time, but I did not want to. The world was still so interesting to me.”

“This was how I thought at the time, for there was still so much I did not know. It was not innocents, but ignorance, which drove my footsteps forward. Who was I, where was I, what was I destined to do, if destiny was my guide?”

“I found a place for myself through the careful application of expectation, for though I had only recently found myself a presence in the world, I could feel how I was already subjected to the eyes and ears of my environment.”

“I first learned how the world worked, with drops of water and clacking rocks. I blew with the wind and felt hot fire. Pain and pleasure and the Myriad Worlds around me.”

“I second learned how I worked, with thoughts and feelings and more besides. I saw that there was another me inside myself, who pulled me about on strings I could not cut.”

“I third learned how the people worked, with words and smiles and scorn. I learned how to behave as they wished instead of how I wished, and found that things were better this way.”

“They called me Lady, and so I was a Lady, though Lady I knew I was not. They called me Song, and so I sang, even though I knew I was more than a melody. They gave me clothing to wear, and I wore it, because I did not want to be impolite. They gave me food, and I ate it, because I did not want to be hungry, though I did not know what hungry was.”

But I knew they grew hungry, and feared its gnawing bite, so I feared the growing emptiness the same as they, lest they think if I was not hungry, I must thereby be food.

“When I threw the bottle, the jar, I did not know that it would shatter. I did not know that glass so smooth and dull could become so sharp and clean. I did not know that shards as small as sand could cut so deep. I did not know that pearls could not be made from such small grains.”

“It was difficult to learn the language, because I did not think as they. Words and sounds came easy to them all, carving through the air like scalpels, cutting away the bits and pieces that hid and obscured. Their thoughts were like typewriters, mechanical arms constructing a deep inner world like a factory, shared through blueprints of serif and sans. Ideas flew freely formed from their lips, and I…”

“I was a song. My words were not shaped or formed, but born and grew. They bubbled up from somewhere unbidden. I did not think, I merely waited, for when the time came, the idea would come. Pulling from mists like lanterns on the prow.”

“Then I too would be forced to carve the air to pieces with my tongue. Turn the effervescent bubbles of my mind into hard and sharp coughs of lung, squeezes of throat. If I spoke to loud or too long, I would choke to death. It hurt, to speak, my throat burned if I conversed to long. Even now, I speak very little, lest the searing pain return to punish my effort to belong.”

“I met my High Priestess, my Chariot, my Devil and my Hanging Man. I followed the Sun’s path, and ended among the judgment of the world. Innocence was lost along the way, I do not remember where.”

So now I search, search, search for the innocence I lost. I search it up I search it down. I’m gone down the road as I wander where I sit, listening and looking among the many.

“His name was Paul, and he was shorter than me. He looked at me with big eyes and smiled when I talked. He worked at a mechanics outside of the city, and took me to dinner, once. He talked about his faith often, and I wondered if that was all it took to know about a person. The innocence was fleeting, and while I sat with rapt attention, staring at the flickering movie, I wondered why so many were eating popcorn, when there was no salt nor butter on the screen.”

“And thereupon I came to spy a hawk flying high above me. I knew that the hawks of the sky were free from the pains of the grounded land, and thus embraced the freedom of true innocents.”

I laughed in delight to see such a sight, and I danced and spun underneath the sun and the shadow the hawk cast over me.

“But soon I stopped, for the wind pulled at my hair, for now I had hair, and I saw that the Hawk was slave to the whims of the air, as I was slave to the earth.”

“He gripped your hat-pin, tightly, in his dying hand. He thought of you, the charming woman he had met once so long ago. He hoped he would see you again some day, because he found you fascinating. Not your tales of jaunts, but you yourself. Had you no tales to tell, no prepared poetry in your soul, still would he have sought you out. But alas his duties took him away from such frivolities, and so he held the memento tight in times of pain.”

“For you see it was he who brought about his own death, to start the hunt, to set the wheel in motion. Encinidine is hidden safe, nowhere to be found save by the answers of a hopeful. Shaped in clay and amber of ancient blood.”

“I saw the Encinidine once before. Laying in my treble sat a small plastic block, as a child might play with on a soft morning in spring. Even from so far a distance, I could see the chipped paint and scratched corners. When I lay a finger upon its face, I heard the three words of Heaven, and saw the nine-spoked-wheel begin to turn.”

“And I saw the truth of innocence, and those standing nearby — dressed in white and holding five-pointed flowers in their left hands, and three sided lanterns in their right — they sang and cheered my ascension into a place of love and understanding.”

“For we are all songs. Vibrations. Compressions and elongations that quiver and thrust and bring us into being, energy plucking the strings as they lie eleven-strong abreast across the neck, to make the melodies and harmonies that define the world as it was and will be. Divine moments of truth show us the way that the holy tune may be sung. But as we try to return home to tell those we love, we lose that which was so clear before. The thoughts turn to words and sounds, the carving done, the gourd begins to rot on the stoop.”

“Even now, they say I live my backward days, but it is you who live backwards, and I who see the way forward. For you, one day should follow after the other, as time marches forward, so to do our lives. But for me?”

“I have no fear of death, for it happened so long ago. So many years of aches and pains slowly ebbing away, while my wistful yearning for days yet to come carried me onward. New friends arrived along the way with weeping, wakes, and eulogies, each listing promises of joyful times, small kindnesses, and the coming hardships tactfully unmentioned. The prelude of a rich and fulfilling life. Some day soon, I remember, the love of my life will die, and I will see them for the first time. I will cry loud tears of sorrow over their casket because of how much of my life has been spent without them. Then that moment will be forgotten — all time spent without them forgotten — as they are taken to the hospital and I will hear them draw breath. Our family and friends will come to visit as illness and age slowly retreat from their withered body, and our long life together will come to its beginning.

We will be happy and sad, and I will forget everything as soon as I have finished it. With no memories, I will have only the bright and beautiful moment of now in which to live.”

“I will forget more and more, my wisdom leaving me as I experience more and more things for the last time. I will bid hello to old friends, whom I will never see again. With wild abandon I will drink my last drink, kiss my last kiss, energy and vitality will fill my body as adulthood leaves me, and I return to the simple pleasures of play. The things which were once so familiar and boring, shall be new and wondrous.

When my time is come, I will be held in my parents arms, to be cared for and loved as no one is ever cared for again. I shall spend my time in my mother’s womb, warm and soft, as I slowly fade, until I am nothing more than a twinkle in someone’s eye. A quickening pulse. A catch of breath. A moment, a single moment, that will never come again.”