[Content warning for character death]
Make your calls to make the world a better place: https://5calls.org/
Stance: http://takeastance.us/
ResistBot: https://resistbot.io/
The poet this week is Edna St. Vincent Millay: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edna-st-vincent-millay
The Woods:
The Map:
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Battlebards Tracks used:
Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet
Crypts of the Undead – Where the Dead Dwell – Score Music – Wilddog Productions
Ancient Chamber – Eon City – Score Music – Mark Stothard
Heavenly Plane – Paradise – Score Music – Luka Lebanidze
Transcription:
For a long time, we were at war with The Jackals. But now, we’ve driven them off, and we have this – a year of relative peace. In this moment, there is an opportunity to build something.
A week has passed.
It becomes time to accept that many good people are dead. From their old coats we make little jackets; we make little trousers from their old pants. There’ll be in their pockets things they used to put there, keys and coins covered with dust and straw; Ezekiel shall have the coins to save in his bank; Yuen shall have the keys to make a pretty noise with. Life must go on, and the dead be forgotten; life must go on, though good folk die; we eat our breakfast; we take our medicine; life must go on; we forget just why.
Llyana knows what zer heart is like since zer love died: It is like a hollow ledge holding a little pool left there by the tide, a little tepid pool, drying inward from the edge. The winter’s freeze caps the ebb of the pool, holding its volume unchanging against the hard mountain stone.
Winter arrives without invitation, without asking if it can take our warmth from our chest, and without letting us dry the tears as they fall. Winter freezes a mask of grief.
What lips our lips have kissed, and where, and why, we have forgotten, and what arms have lain under our heads till morning; but the snow is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh upon the glass and listen for reply, and in our heart there stirs a quiet pain for unremembered lads that not again will turn to us at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, yet knows its boughs more silent than before: Llyana cannot say what loves have come and gone, ze only know that summer sang in zem a little while, that in zem sings no more.
We wake to find zer fireplace cold with the ashes of yesterday hard against the stone. Zer face covered by an icy mask.
Winter elements leave everyone cold, tired, and miserable. From fatigue physical and emotional comes a deep sleep, and Llyana’s eyes close in a forever slumber.
All ze could see from where ze stood was three long mountains and a wood; ze turned and looked another way, and saw three islands in a bay. So with zer eyes ze traced the line of the river, thin and fine, straight around till ze was come back to where ze’d started from; and all ze saw from where ze stood was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things ze could not see; these were the things that bounded ze; and ze could touch them with zer hand, almost, ze thought, from where ze stands. And all at once things seemed so small zer breath came short, and scarce at all.
Ze screamed, and—lo!—Infinity came down and settled over zem; forced back zer scream into zer chest, bent back zer arm upon zer breast, and, pressing of the Undefined the definition on zer mind, held up before zer eyes a glass through which zer shrinking sight did pass until it seemed ze must behold immensity made manifold; whispered to zem a word whose sound deafened the air for worlds around, and brought unmuffled to zer ears the gossiping of friendly spheres, the creaking of the tented sky, the ticking of Eternity.
Ze saw and heard, and knew at last the How and Why of all things, past, and present, and forevermore. The Universe, cleft to the core, lay open to zer probing sense that, sick’ning, ze would fain pluck thence but could not,—nay! But needs must suck at the great wound, and could not pluck zer lips away till ze had drawn all venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn! For zer omniscience paid ze toll in infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of the wishful girl who had been with us a long time, all atoning hers, and hers the gall of all regret. Hers was the weight of every brooded wrong, the hate that stood behind each envious thrust, hers every greed, hers every lust. And all the while for every grief, each suffering, she craved relief with individual desire,— craved all in vain! And felt fierce cold our community crawl; perished with each,—then mourned for all!
Drach was starving in a cave; he moved his eyes and looked at her; she felt his gaze, she heard his moan, and knew his wolven hunger as her own. She saw at sea a great fog bank between two ships that struck and sank; a thousand screams the heavens smote; and every scream tore through his throat.
No hurt he did not feel, no death that was not his; his each last breath that, crying, met an answering cry from the compassion that was hers. All suffering theirs, and theirs its rod; theirs, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight! Infinity pressed down upon the finite Me! Llyana’s anguished spirit, like a bird, beating against zer lips ze heard; yet lay the weight so close about there was no room for it without. And so beneath the weight lay ze and suffered death, but could not reach infinity.
Long had ze lain thus, craving death, when quietly the earth beneath gave way, and inch by inch, so great at last had grown the crushing weight, into the earth ze sank till ze full six feet under ground did lie, and sank no more,—there is no weight can follow here, however great. From off scaled breast ze felt it roll, and as it went zer tortured soul burst forth and fled in such a gust that all about zem swirled the dust.
Deep in the cave ze rested now; the cool hand of the conjurant girl who has been with us a long time upon zer brow and soft zer breast beneath the head of one who is not gladly dead. And all at once, and over all the pitying snow began to fall; They three lay and heard each melting drip upon the mountainous step, and seemed to love the sound far more than ever they had done before. For snow it hath a friendly sound to one who’s six feet underground; and scarce the friendly voice or face: a grave is such a quiet place.
Eileen leaves flowers dead, dried, cracking on Llyana’s grave. How can she bear it; Llyana buried there, while overhead the sky grows clear and blue again after the storm? O, multi-colored, multiform, beloved beauty, that she shall never, never see again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold, that she shall never more behold! Sleeping zer myriad magics through, close-sepulchred away from you! O God, she cried, give zem new birth, and put zem back upon the earth! Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd and let the heavy snow, down-poured in one big blanket, set me free, washing zer grave away from me!
She ceased; and through the breathless hush that answered her, the muffled rush of scaled claws came whispering like music up the vibrant string of her ascending prayer, and—crash! Hidden in the wild wind’s whistling lash the startled Creature woke in turn and roared up in terror in its cavern, and the big snow in one white wave resumed its surge and struck the grave.
Eileen knew not how such things can be; she only knows there came to her a fragrance such as never clings to aught save happy living things; a sound as of some joyous elf singing sweet songs to please himself, and, through and over everything, a sense of glad awakening. The ice, a-tiptoe at her ear, whispering to her she could hear; in the cave the confused girl who has been with us a long time felt the sprite’s cool finger-tips brushed tenderly across her lips, laid gently on her sealed sight, and all at once the heavy night fell from Eileen’s eyes and she could see,—
A drenched and dripping apple-tree, A last long line of silver snow, A sky grown clear and blue again. And as she looked a quickening gust of wind blew up to her and thrust into her face a miracle of stale mountain-breath, and with the smell,— she knew not how such things could be!— the fading girl who has been with us a long time breathed her soul back into she.
Up then from the ground sprang Eileen who hailed the earth with such a cry as is not heard save from she who has been dead, and lives again. About the circling pines her arms she wound; like one gone mad she hugged the ground; she raised her quivering arms on high; and laughed and laughed into the sky, till at her throat a strangling sob caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb sent instant tears into her eyes; O God, she cried, no dark disguise can e’er hereafter hide from me thy radiant identity!
Shepherds move across the cycles of time and her quick eyes do see Them pass, and speak, however silently, and her hushed voice answers Them. She knows the path that tells Their way through the cool eve of every day; God, she can push the cycles apart and lay her finger on Their heart!
The world stands out on either side no wider than the heart is wide; above the world is stretched the sky,— no higher than the soul is high. The heart can push river and land farther away on either hand; the soul can split the sky in two, and let the face of God shine through. But East and West will pinch the heart that can not keep them pushed apart; and she whose soul is flat—the sky will cave in on her by and by. And so Eileen who has been with us a long time turns to The Beast and The Creature, taking their hands, and rising to the sky.
And a week passes.
Thank you for joining us for the thirty sixth episode of From The Jackals To The Shepherds. If you like this show please give us a rating on iTunes, tell a friend, or share us on social media. As always the intro for the show was read by Dave Lapru, who is also our mapkeeper. You can find Dave on twitter at plantbird, and I’m at leviathan files. This week’s poet is T.E. Hulme. Please consider visiting our website at Riverhouse Games dot com, or supporting this show and other Riverhouse Games work on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Riverhouse Games. Music for this episode was provided by Battlebards dot com.
Listeners, I have a favor to ask of you. In these times there’s a lot that needs doing in the world, and we have to stand up as a people and make our voices heard. I ask that you make a few phone calls to your representatives about issues that matter to you. I’ve been using a great website at 5 Calls dot org which provides critical issues, background information, contact info, and even scripts to read while on the phone. Thankfully my representative’s offices have been polite and personable when I call, but if you’re worried about it, or if you experience phone anxiety, there’s an app you can download called Stance, which allows you to pre-record your statement, which it will then deliver straight to the representative’s voicemail. You can also use ResistBot, a free service that emails or faxes your representatives based on text messages you send through the service. Calling makes the biggest difference, but it’s a smart strategy to cover your bases. A polite and persistent approach across multiple mediums is the way to go. Today I’m calling to urge my representatives to DEMAND PROTECTION OF OUR NATIONAL MONUMENTS
On Monday, December 4th, Trump traveled to Utah to announce the reduction of two National Monuments in the state: Bear’s Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Combined, the reduction removes two million acres of land from the public, shrinking Bear’s Ears by a whopping 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 45%. This decision by Trump represents the largest rollback of federally protected land in American history, opening the way for development, logging, drilling, and mining on these lands.
This assault on our public lands is just his first. In April, Trump issued an executive order directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review the status of all national monuments that make up 100,000+ acres and were created since 1996 under the Antiquities Act of 1906. The results of this review, leaked to the Washington Post in September, recommended modifying 10 national monuments including the shrinking of at least four. These sites include the 2 Utah monuments along with Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou.
There is some question if Trump has the authority to reduce National Monuments under the Antiquates Act of 1906, and legal challenges by Native American and environmental groups have already been filed. Congress also has a responsibility to speak out against this attack on public lands and demand Trump change course.
Please make your calls to help make our world a better place. Thank you, I love you, and I’m proud of you in advance.
And until next week, I hope your week goes well.
From The Jackals To The Shepherds 