Ballad for the Moon and Her Soldier, by Alanah Tuohey

There lived on a hill a man loved by the Moon,
Who tended black gardens beneath her cool eye,
His days full of fever and metal and war,
The moon brought him silence in the dark of July.

He raised up to her with bouquets of white flowers,
And she sent him secrets on spider-spun thread,
But flowers and secrets are worth more than silver,
When rumors of blessings by night’s tender spread.

The man sought to hide them, his garden and lover,
From silver-tongued bindings of his castle’s Lord,
But all men on that hill were bound by their station,
And his keeper did call him to pick up his sword.

Jasmine, Gardenia, and Datura blossom
And pale light kissed a hand destined for a tomb
“I’ll help you” she promised “My dear, remember,
I’ve given you knowledge to keep you from doom.”

The Knight said “I love you, I trust you, remember,”
“I’ll visit each night when your bright brother sleeps.”
So he wreathed his armor in Jasmine, Gardenia,
And Datura blossoms bring death where it weeps.

The castle’s lord sent him as sage more than fighter
But stole his treasured twilights to use in the war
The moon sent more secrets, whispered conversation
And kept his steps quiet through black fields of gore.

But her gifts were subtle and his eye so distant
He waited, they all knew, for when he might leave.
His comrades grew jealous, their loves slowly falling
And silver is worth less than bread in a siege.

Time wore on slowly and death in it’s chariot
Days full of starving, exhaustion and fever,
And the knight grew desperate to treat with the Moon.
He knelt at the dark and turned his face to her:

“Dear moon, I love you, please help me remember,
What knowledge you’ve granted that might save my life.”
The moon knelt as well and she murmured to him,
“The bouquets you grow me will lift you from strife.”

“How?” Pleaded the knight, “For I can not leave,
Let alone slip datura in so many glasses—
—And all the fields here are fallow with blood,
Our young black gardens will fall to those masses.”

“Beloved, my gardener, I love you, remember,
Who’s word keeps a sword in your palm through the day.
If you poison the cup of the one that binds you,
My light hand will wait there to take you away.”

She returned a gift he gave her long ago,
A crown of white flowers preserved by her power,
And bid him “My darling, I love you, good luck.”
He took it, and promised to meet in that tower.

The knight sent a letter to visit the Lord,
That he had been shown the greatest vision yet,
And the war would be won if he’d only listen,
And the Castle’s Lord obliged his soldier, his pet.

So then it came as dusk touched September,
The Gardner-Knight wandered the palisade walls.
He met with the castle lord in his quarters,
And the moon’s light followed his heels through the halls.

They spoke in good spirits of battles endings,
Forgiveness and futures for all who would follow,
The word of the Knight that was loved by the moon.

But he, of course, was lying.

The Knight slipped a flower from his wreath to the wine,
And drank up no further, but watched and waited,
For him to see that his own pawn had killed him,
And as his lungs closed he cried out, belated.

The Moon through the window beckoned her lover,
As death’s armor-clad footsteps encircled the stair,
Before they could enter he leapt to her arms,
But she was not living, the Moon’s hands only air.

At the base of that tower her sadness collected
Mixed with the blood of her lover for years.
And to this day there grows jasmine, gardenia,
And datura blossoms with the mourning Moon’s tears

Author: poetryfest

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