As Ivandar sorts through the boring parchments he's contracted to copy that afternoon, a scrap falls to the floor. Its edges torn, and of a different hue, it's obviously a fragment that's worked its way into the leaves by mistake. He bends and lifts it, expecting to find fragmentary merchant records or, more interestingly, a bit of history. But, no, it's a poem. His eyes scan the lines, his expression sobering slightly. Then he sets the scrap aside, trying to dismiss the words from his mind to focus on his work. After all, summer is not so sad.
Ephemeral
Down in the crook-boughed orchard,
Velvety wasps crawl on whisker-thin legs
To sip from wounds in the complacent early peaches.
At the pond’s weedy edge, a lone frog croaks,
Reciting his unremarked commentaries, before sidling away
Into cool waters where tadpoles dream.
The wind runs her fingers through the meadow’s long grasses,
They wave above scurrying mice, below soaring swallows,
Unnoticed amid the bustle of those urgent, oblivious lives.
I am that unripe peach, my stem storm-broken,
So that when death comes, a sticky-fingered child,
I fall at the first touch into his over-eager hands.
I am the frog, diving back into dirt and slime,
A single fast-fading ripple to mark my descent.
I am the breeze, my passing a flicker of light, a few dewdrops,
And then the grasses are as if I had never been,
While the world’s untroubled summer afternoon
Stretches on.
