I squeeze the bottle again and again
The honey burbling as another drop struggles to fall
And I have to wonder once more if
It is worth it to struggle so for
Just one more small taste of sweetness
Get yourself a little something–or maybe get something for your sweetie!
The day, at last, has come that I have sought;
The joy its coming brings, I’d near forgot
As I by reams of paper have been caught.
But soon, I shall have leave to go and play
At being young again while the bright day
Shines out across the hills. I seldom say
Such things, of course, since I my work must do,
But seldom saying does not make untrue
What is thus said, and joy does now me woo.
It beckons from outside the window’s pane,
Makes its intentions for me clear and plain,
Suggests that soon I’ll find some ease for pain
I took these several months to figures run–
Perhaps this time I may well have some fun!
If it’s not too taxing, maybe hire me to write for you?
The string has to be taut for the bow to pull sweet sounds from it,
And a sure hand has to be had for so much to be true,
But it is all too easy, when trying to tune,
To make something snap, and there is no fixing it after
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Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.
An extended commentary on a fragmentary Skill-scroll precedes “Bonds and Ties,” which opens with Fitz enjoying riding a new horse and not enjoying the attempt by the same–Fleeter–to Wit-bond with him. Fitz assesses his combat capabilities as Fleeter presses upon him, and Fitz’s name in the Wit, Changer, comes to attention again as Lant and Perseverance join them. Fitz also does not enjoy the added company and attempts to get the others to leave, but they refuse and determine to accompany him despite his urgency. Nor yet is he thrilled that Motley joins and decides to like Perseverance, nor yet when Riddle later joins the growing throng–although Riddle, at least, seems aware of the complications the expanding group presents.
With warning that they will not wait for the others, Fitz and Riddle press ahead, Fitz settling into the saddle atop Fleeter and acknowledging her quality as a mount; Perseverance does a decent job of keeping up, and Lant lags behind. At the end of the day, the group chance upon a barn and make use of it, conferring as they tend to themselves and their animals. Fitz surreptitiously doses the group’s tea with a soporific, apologizing for doing so as they fall asleep, and after a brief rest of his own, he doses himself and Fleeter with carris seed, musing on what he has seen of its perils. After ensuring that his erstwhile companions will be well, Fitz also doses himself with delvenbark, and he and Fleeter proceed into the dark.
The prefatory materials once again catch my interest. Describing a damaged manuscript and the circumstances of its damage, the prefatory materials bring to my medievalist-trained mind the various manuscripts of the Cotton Library, damaged by flame and thrown out into the snow–those that were not lost, entirely. Even now, some of those manuscripts continue to degrade from the effects of the flames, chemical changes to their materials put into motion and ongoing, unstoppable, ultimately irredeemable. Knowing as I do about some of what survived, I have to wonder what was lost and will now never be found again, and a great sorrow wells up within me at the works of scribal hands and cunning minds lost to chance and misfortune. How much worse must it be to contemplate deliberate destruction!
But it’s not like that kind of thing happens anymore, right?
In the chapter, itself, I note with some appreciation the juxtaposition of Fitz’s recognition of his (physical) deconditioning and his seemingly easy resumption of his assassin’s tricks; he notes the fatigue he feels after a single day of hard riding, when he had before gone days or weeks in the wild with relative ease, and he has little hesitation about drugging his comrades–and does so without being noticed by someone also trained to stealth and skullduggery (Riddle being long implied to have some such schooling). Something about old age and treachery comes to mind, and, as I feel my (fewer than Fitz’s) years while I’m writing this, there is some comfort in it for me.
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The last few dozen yards beckon,
And though my legs are grown heavy
And my breath is raggedly in and out,
Still, I swallow and start to sprint,
Knowing that once I break the tape,
I can rest a while before the next event
The days and months pass, but poetry endures; commission your work today!
Reading for the work I do,
And there is still a lot of it I do
Even now in these later days,
I remember when I read for the joy of it,
Something I seem not to do anymore,
And I wonder where the years have gone,
Even as I have to get back to
Poring over the pages
Like what you see?
Then hire me,
And go forth with glee
At the writing you get!
The flowers emerge from the soil again
Green-built blooms rising from between the stones
The gravel and pebbles and chunks of rock
Leavings of tree-roots walking through
Still waving proudly at the roadsides
And I smile to see them
Even if I dare not stop to smell them
Knowing that the traffic will not slow for me
And that I will not last long as a speedbump
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There are times
I think
I ought to be
The kind of guy who
Goes out camping,
But then the rain falls
And such thoughts wash away,
Ripples on my windows
Whatever the weather, I will write for you!
Doom keeps getting
Closer and closer,
Nearing arrival,
And I have never been so glad
Someone can’t find the clit
Scandalous or otherwise, I am happy to write to order for you!
Although I would like to rehearse
With every day a little verse,
I’ve work to do, and it gets worse
If I should e’er neglect it.
I still will do my little part
To press ahead with ragged art,
Thus easing upset of my heart,
Which I’ve too oft neglected.
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