The Ballad of Serenity

A nightingale in a birch nearby,
sang a song that made her cry.
"Another note and I shall die!"
Her threat was met with no reply.

And so she rested by the stream,
and heard the crickets softly dream.
She watched the cattails kiss the stars,
believing heaven not so far.

"And here is where I shall be free,"
whispered fair Serenity.

The orphaned child, the strange young girl
born into an ancient world.
No elegance or skill had she
but the ballad, of Serenity.

She was cursed with just one song:
a ballad haunting, soft and long.
The words were never hers to hear,
but danced always beyond her ear.
On harp, flute, lyre she wiled away,
the notes that only she could play.

Yet she grew tried of just one song
and ran away before too long,
into a wood with stream of gold
where rumored lived the bards of old.
She found the caves of deepest blue
and told them, "I have searched for you."

Serenity the bards admired.
They gave to her the sacred lyre,
which bound her soul between its strings,
to find the words she could not sing.

And as she played for all around
the fire, a young bard heard the sound.
Enchanted, stole a glance, a smile
as she played there all the while.

And as she played she glimpsed his face,
the deep blue eyes of deepest grace.
The youngest bard among the clan,
she knew she'd have no other man.

He saw her face, her eyes, her hair.
He glimpsed what beauty might be there.
He heard her voice and watched her hands,
the finest skilled in all the land
He saw not what was in her heart,
but only what kept them apart.

So he grew tired of just one song
and broke the lyre before too long.
He said, "What sorcery holds you?
That you must play the way you do?
One song, one song for all your life?"

Serenity could not reply
and merely watched the lyre float by,
carried away down the river gold
into mysteries untold.

And from the lyre's broken strings
stolen, her voice began to sing,
those words that she had never known,
to the ballad that was hers alone.

And so she came to realize
her ballad told her own demise.

"Just one reason I should stay,
And I shall remain for all my days."
His words found echo in her mind,
but her own words she could not find.

Her voice was broken as the lyre.
Her throat burned raw with ancient fire.

She tried to speak with hands, with eyes,
but he was blind to all her cries.
He left the stream, he left the lyre,
he took with him her one desire.

He left her with no other word
and she never knew if he had heard.


copyright 2010 Julia Rain Jeys Wellman