Well, that was a long absence! But lately I’ve been writing again. It comes and goes, but right now the inspiration is back, so I’m posting again. Tonight I thought I’d share a poem I just wrote. The poem is an exercise for my Ethiedus world, a love poem from Dorian Anneroy to Lirania Terrell. Dorian is a prior at Isenvale Abbey, and he’s a healer as well. He is patient, faithful, and self-sacrificing. And he is deeply in love with Lirania Terrell, a relation of the abbot who came to the abbey with her two small children several years ago (at the time of the poem’s writing). Dorian cannot be with Lirania due to vows he has made, and Lirania is very focused on her growing children first and foremost in any case. Lirania tends the beehives at Isenvale Abbey, works in her small flower garden, and helps make candles both for the monks’ use and to sell to support the Abbey. But the love is mutual, if chaste. Dorian spends a lot of time with Lirania, teaching her the healer’s arts, and talking of many things. They never seem to run out of conversation. Dorian is one of the few who know that Lirania Terrell was once Lady Reias Greylyn, widow of the late Lord Corsam Greylyn, and that her children are more than they seem. Intimacy has carefully blossomed between them in Lirania’s time at Isenvale Abbey, and now Dorian has written her a poem to express the depth of his love. So here’s what I wrote tonight, “Where the Lilac Grows” — I hope you like it.
Where the lilac grows in your garden
So too will you find me there,
Awaiting the touch of your hand
Soft as sunlight and delicate as bee’s wings.
So carefully do you tend them,
Keeper of my honeycombed heart,
No winged hive-dweller would grudge you your due.
Neither can I begrudge you this love,
Unsought and unbidden,
Transformative as spring rains.
The landscape of my heart has changed.
You, no naive young girl,
No stranger to pain and loss,
Say the garden of your heart is dead and withered
But I know the truth of your beauty.
I see the love in your eyes,
When your little ones play at games
When you tuck them in at night
When you look, then, at me
And over tea we talk late into the dark.
I see the love in your eyes.
You say
You don’t know how to love me
But the beautiful thing
Is that you already do.
Would that our lips would someday meet
Would that I could caress your bare skin
With all the tender desire that I feel
But should it never come to pass thus,
I will regret none of the hours
We have spent exchanging words
Long into the reaching twilight.
No promises have touched our lips
Nor can vows of love pass mine
But here, in secret, you will know my devotion
And I am content.
Tender sweetness, like the honey in your hives,
And love as gentle
As the light from the candle in your window
Guides me
Guides me home.
Writing Ethiedus 