I was inspired by Noor‘s recent piece “The Butcher of Bagdad”, which ends with her reflection on the cost of glory, and what glory even means. It reminded me of this poem, which I’m sharing with you today.
This poem is leagues different in tone and timbre from Noor’s indelibly elegant prose. Rather than painting the picture of glory, it shies away from confrontation, focusing on the approach towards the darkness that precedes it.
I wrote it as a recent high school graduate, and like the one I published last week, it also ends on an uncertain note. Perhaps it will leave you in a foggy void just like the one it features.
Inspired probably by Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time fantasy book series, and my own obsession with lucid dreaming, a rougher version of this poem spilled out of me as I sat at my Packard Bell computer with MS Word open. That young man (me)—with his religious trauma—must have been so terrified by his questions and doubts about the truthfulness of his Mormon faith, God, and the afterlife, that he could scarcely imagine what a confrontation with a literal void could look like.
Yet, the image of it remained with him.
Like the boy on his steed in this poem, I was hurtling towards it, oblivious to its existence, and what it meant. It’s clear to me now: the void in the poem represented the two years of full-time missionary life that I would undertake for my church, in another country, away from my family and friends. Two years that I’d never once considered not doing. I’d been raised up for it as step X in a series of steps mapped out for me by my church and family.
I could probably write this poem’s ending now, but I feel it more appropriate to let it stand as-is, with minimal line revisions to smooth its rougher edges.
On the last line you might see what this was all about, and why I’ve decided to leave it there. But I could be persuaded to push on, like the boy on his steed, and concretize this confrontation with the Void.
What do you think?
My voiceover:
Mournful Glory
A young man read a saga of death and defeat
In a certain life story of glory by death.
The worst story, surely, he ever had read,
(But the lesson therein was not written in ink—
For the book veiled truth, with a hidden wink).
Now asleep on his bed, he dreamed a dream.
A dream so dark that it must be told:
Over a mountain, across a hill,
Across a large field, and over a knoll;
In the darkest night air, lacquered dimly with care,
He rode his horse, his most blesséd mare,
He rode fast, edging close to the foot of a glade
With its fringe so honed, like the edge of a blade
His thoughts were a-flurry but held hardly a care
For that sad little book and its terrible story
Of heroes and pain and mournful glory.
There hidden low, crouched ahead at the roots
Of the forest—tall sea of shadow and beast—
Was a bald, wary, lonely, cackling man
Who could never forget that forgettable story,
Of heroes of legend and mournful glory.
The wild man waited there to make his acquaintance,
As he feared for the boy and impending danger.
So, sensing he’d flee at the sight of a stranger,
He cloaked himself, disguised as a Ranger.
Casually the boy rode on,
Passing many a rabbit and startled fawn,
Hopping o’er brambles, thorns and weeds,
And spring’s new stock of winter’s seeds.
The seeds were abundant and blanketed fields,
Among ice, straw, and clay, completely congealed.
Now as spring finally came and winter died down,
As a giddy young child suppresses a frown,
One last, little seed flew on winter’s last breeze,
A wheeze through the tops of the towering trees—
Whispering of a forgotten story,
Of legend and myth, and costly glory.
That black, little pod fell on softening ground.
There, it sank slowly down, and with hardly a sound,
Became a black hole, very wide and round,
Spewing fog, a dark pall surrounding his town.
Transcending all reason, so far out of season,
The miasma began stirring the people to reason,
Conjecture, debate, its existence;
What its origin was—was the question, insistent.
As his horse’s stout hooves tilled the sodden lawn,
So oblivious still, the boy pushed on,
He approached the abyss, abnormality,
This threat to his very mortality,
The moment was locked, avoidance now blocked
By his rhythm and breath, beating time from his chest.
The old man in the dark, keen and wary of all
That surrounded the chasm—its precipitous fall—
Moved to shadow the lad and his trusted mount
Through the wood—speedy strides—as fast as he could,
Trampling wet twigs and leaves on the dark forest ground,
As the wheezing continued, a grisly sound.
From out of that hole, the intangible bore—
The oppressive depression, a feeling, no more,
Was steeling and reeling for what was in store:
If the boy, oblivious, ignored the lore of that forgotten life story,
Of one young man and unwanted glory.
Well done