Chapter the Third

The quill pen shook in Elvina’s hand, partly from anxiety, partly from excitement.

Dear Mother and Father,

You know I am not like Gwindreth. I love her beyond the world’s end, but we are very different. You know me- I do not jump to conclusions or pursue crazy whims. I do not remember ever acting on an impulse without deliberate forethought and careful planning. Based on this, which you know full well to be true of my character, please trust me and try to understand that I did not leave for any reason less than the best.

when my fears
have worn me out
and worn me thin
can I crawl up on Your lap
and fall asleep there
until I can breathe again?

when my dreams
have left me cold
and all alone
can I run into Your arms
and learn to bear it
until I can dream again?

and when my love
breaks my heart
and takes me apart
can I come in close to You
and touch Your wounds
until my pain makes me one with You
and brings me back to life again?

“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke

A racehorse held by the restraining gate
I see the prize I strive to win
Excitement, desire to run the race
But only with your consenting grace
Approving these storms within

Uncertain, timid without a clue
I see the prizes yet cannot choose
Indecision, a falter before the day
Waiting for you to lead the way
To show which goal is true

Trusting, stepping out on the edge
Ready now to take the stand
Leaping into the harrowing abyss
Depending on you to protect in this
And save me when I land

O You who have loved me into life
will You catch my fall?
do You promise You will be there
if I give up the ground
and dare to drop
from the heights my heart has climbed to?
such a long way down
from self-possession
Hope, hold tight my heart
in the dark between the leaping
and the everlasting arms
the half-second fall
holy in-between
when the world holds its breath with mine
hanging by a hope
something larger than my life
O You who have walked this way before

I don’t know why I did it.
I wish I hadn’t.
She used to trust me, and I broke that trust.

“If they catch us, they’ll think you’re the spy,” She’d said. “I couldn’t let that happen.”
I looked away from her, ashamed at what I knew.

I watched as they kicked her awake, then put a sword to her throat. I wish I could’ve done something then to save her, but I wasn’t ready to risk my life. As they hauled her to her feet, fear shone in her eyes. She glanced at me.
And I looked away.

What is it that keeps us falling
when we know it hurts?
Our bodies are broken and wounded
but our cries seem only to echo
in the empty void we fall into

Pouring songs into rivers
drifting fires over ice
our hearts are
crumbling houses
do tears suffice?

Just because I feel OK today
who can say I'll feel this way
tomorrow
'Cause everything is moving
like shifting sand beneath my feet