Ballade of the Recently Dispossessed
#28 of poetry
Look, I never promised I was done with the bitter poems entirely, just the ones from 2020.
This one's earlier.
I planted apple trees between the shadow of the pines
I lit the lanterns, scrubbed the sun-starved windows of their scum
For aye, this house was emptiness, and this home would be mine
But promises are lies and jests when truth with autumn comes.
I cleared the crumbling rubble and I brushed away the crumbs
But to make room for you, I see. Then in the house you've got,
May you be home, and so forget the one you took it from,
For I, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me not.
I thought we'd weathered worse than this. I thought that I was tough.
I thought to put down roots at last, and not to roam again.
I thought so many things, my dear. I think I've thought enough.
If I began to act I cannot think what you'd think then.
The birds have nests. The foxes have their foxholes and their dens.
The lilies have their field at least, though that is not a lot.
At least one son of wolf, it seems, has only where he's been,
For I, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me not.
Please do not say you meant well, or that it's for the best.
We all have heard what paves the road to certain realms below.
And please pretend no ignorance of what you've dispossessed:
Blessed are the amnesiac, whose past no one need know.
The wounds the world and treachery continue to bestow
Have your name in the ending credits, as an afterthought.
You should have known. You do not know. I think you'll never know,
But I, I was a stranger. And you welcomed me not.
Princess, I cannot curse you. No more can I forget.
If that be weakness, why, then I am weaker than I thought.
If that be forgiveness, then I will take what I can get.
For aye, I am a stranger. And you welcomed me not.