A Woman's Love: An Elegy
It’s a tragedy, to love a woman so well,
Blown back from childhood, battles we knew so well.
When I was Sam, and you were Merry,
We all changed through Frodo, our other friend was Pippin.
Here we fought Middle Earth’s wars from days beginning to end,
Till that night, a fight, the light came screeching to a sudden halt,
And the Ents were cut down by a premium housing firm.
Under the cover of their broken back blown shouts
Galadriel’s whistle stole our Merry away,
While we, distracted, smoldered beside the men
Who stole our daydreams
And threw Pippin quarters under the bush,
For walking like a lady.
We were 15 when we looked up.
With no Merry.
You had gone to meet your lady.
Childish games for childless shames.
All the Ents were dead.
And I didn’t care.
There to be born the boy of the backstreets
With few cares but grand emotion,
Tucked away, saved someday
For when Galadriel would nip at your face in French,
(You were dumb and only spoke American)
While I, caring little for her pâté, but fluent in French matters,
Battled her tongue word for word and dominance,
Shadowing you behind carnival Ferris wheels
And the inky black of locker rooms
To hear the swooners croon
“I want it that way” from the party inside.
It was I who taught you how to kiss her with my mouth,
Through my words I guided you and held your heart,
And then, we parted.
All three.
You two, through the inky black,
And me,
Outside in the dumb show of bro bravado,
With a pale flaxen love I brought for the night
To light my heart’s light as I was low,
In my body’s soul I shuddered and sought to show that glow
I wished to grow so greatly,
Gently grating the long and pang I wished for her.
But I’m no Aragorn.
And I miss my Shire.
I let her go.
She hates me still.
Still, like the muddy river bottom,
Merry Galadriel caked for many years more
And I swore that in my heart
I blessed the silent sticky which bore my friend away from me,
Into thee,
Lovely lady, you were a friend of mine as well.
And in those muddy river brakes, I cultivated flowers,
Not mine to know their fragrant smell,
I’ve grown these weeds to smoke, to ease my mind,
Every time I slipped a note between her hands,
Your eyes,
The twisted ties together, stronger.
I became all the more complicit.
And our budding cherry, seeming parted,
Was yours, both, together, never mine.
Only time itself would wash myself away from that mangy stream,
And when the flood came,
There were tears in little Merry’s eyes,
Her words, beautiful,
So clear,
All the mud had gone away,
The day I delivered her message of resignation to you with my voice.
It was her choice, not mine,
Brother.
Well he cried, and died, and died while crying some more,
In the days, the weeks, the months, the years who flow
And come never more for Galadriel,
“Love is tragic and hard!” he pronounced to me.
In a den of E, one night when the boys were left alone
To dictate the fate of the world as boys our age often do.
I gave him my quick and muddy reply,
“You lie, you are the tragic one, for your love has grown soft,
That’s why she left you merry and alone, boy.”
He called me, “A fuck” and I knew my place,
To serve his greater earthly facets and weave smiles for him
As he contemplated eternal bachelorhood at age 22.
Alone with me.
No more three.
He. He. He.
No man could breathe to the life unseen
The way young Merry’s life did for Sam.
We laughed and laughed and laughed
Until suddenly, at once, there came a crash
In the den of that foggy, dripping night,
And Galadriel’s body came floating over yours into the purple haze,
Let in by some crack under the door.
That night I heard you love her through your dreams,
And so it seems she will always till a plot of bitter earth
Near the junction of your heart and her mouth.
It’s what I have seen.
Friends don’t stay like evergreens.
That night I wandered aimlessly into my mind,
To smile the smile,
And make him forget.
To bless the memories that never happened.
To forget the girl or two I knew when I was younger and merry.
He introduced both to you, remember?
No, remember when we lived together in Harlem?
And heard the Negro speak of rivers.
Remember when lilacs last in our doorway bloomed?
The day the North and the South were knit once more.
Forever.
And I smiled the smile
To make myself forget.
In my mind you gave me that merry laugh,
Forever.
Tearing away from me, your Sam,
My games and imagination made a young Merry smile,
And like a wizard, transform him into a different man.
When I awoke, Galadriel had fled once more
And you were a different man,
No longer merry, and quite unlike my own.
Imagination is a devil and I prick it tunelessly on my heartstrings.
I want a woman.
But cannot see,
Who she should be.
If Merry would kindly pick for me, a wife,
I’d lay my soul down and smoke a pipe
For the rest of my days in the Shire.
But all the Ents are dead.
They have been mowed over.
And the Shire was washed away in the flood.
Remember? It’s gone.
Love has gone away and we chase Galadriel together,
Through the air, her hair, who will catch her?
I cannot say.
You have never seen the way I always let you leap up at her first, brother.
The memories of a lover, held in the hands of another
More refined and supple to carry a merry young lad away,
To play around those curves I learned of a longing last to be knit,
Fast to your soul through another.
But I can’t find her.
The day I do we shall be boys once again,
Forever.
Brother.
And under our giant friends, these Ents, we shall grow old,
Each with a grandson on our knee,
And wives by our sides,
Two houses, side by side,
Will I ever say, “Remember this time old friend?”
Brother, I do not know.
The tale cannot be told,
And I may grow old waiting for the woman who will never leave me,
The way men always do.
But that’s our way, to stay is pure folly.
Go to her.
I’ll be on my way, my Merry lad.
If I come by slowly or not at all,
Do not form a band of brave young lads to search for me, no.
Love love, it is the greatest show.
The Shire has detained me, that is all.
It is warm there, and reminds me of the games we used to play,
In the days long before she came,
And our play became your night.
