Waiting On The Edge Of A Battle
A poem for Pippin
Waiting for the morning
In the summer, in the Shire.
Blackbird calling to blackbird
And over everything a light
Like burned rose.
Tense under the coverlets
Like a drawn bowstring
Eager to be gone
Over the dew-soaked fields
And trees full of sunrise
Sweet with the scent of freedom.
Oh will it ever be day?
Darkness and a red dust
Sifting the breathless air.
Fear and a strange city,
Strange people, strange land
Strange livery, black and silver,
Sword sharp for killing
Cold in a numb hand.
No blackberries today, no
Songs of roving. Only
Lays for the dead and a sun
Rising in blood.
Go back, Peregrine Took
Go back to the Citadel..
And die as you see fit..
Little hands may do great deeds
Or I am much mistaken
Footfalls in the sepulchre
The living among the dead.
The little among the great
The foolish among the wise.
Under a battle sky the Steward’s son
I rescued from the fire.
- Varda
