The Bones Beneath the Stone*

The Bones Beneath the Stone

 

(The Ballad of Baptiste De Guerre)

 

In life, I kept

A lonely keep

Inside a citadel

 

And in it hid

A darkling scroll

That of our sorrows tell

 

I placed it in a gilded trunk

With prayer and precious stones

 

And buried it beneath the Cross

Among most sacred bones.

 

Then, lived I in

The cares that came,

And though I lived alone,

 

I had some loves,

And those who loved,

I loved as if my own.

 

I worshipped well

And honored all

And cherished

Every day,

 

And yet, I suffered in the sins

That I had stowed away

 

For that which in

The green of youth

Seems gray as it

 

Appears,

 

Grows Stygian black

Within the man who gains

The greater years[1]

 

For though sin sleeps, it will awake

 

In parts, till it is whole,

 

As will the bones beneath a stone

In union with the soul

 

-THE TUMBLER-

 

The tumbler tossed a five for me;

The tumbler tossed a one

 

And I am rising

From a shell;

 

My time on Earth is done

 

Great legacies?

I leave a few,

 

As parts of my largesse

 

Of many unrequited loves

Of gold, or something less

 

Point is that no one lives today

Who knew me when I cared,

Or noted what I thought

 

Or felt

 

Or witnessed what I dared

 

Point is that no one lives today

Who loved me when I loved,

 

Or saw the things I did for love

When love was pushed or shoved

 

-2-

 

The tumbler tossed a five for me;

The tumbler tossed a one;

 

And I am turning toward

A light that blazes

Like the sun

 

Point is that life is meaningless

In terms of what we do

 

Point is that life is vanity

In terms of me and you[2]

 

I rise and fall 

And float and fly

Above a dismal scene

 

Of common men

Whose common joys

Make life itself unclean

 

And there are demons, to be sure,

That mock us, one and all,

For they are woven

In the threads

 

Of every

 

Funeral pall!

 

-3-

 

The tumbler tossed a five for me;

The tumbler tossed a one;

 

And now I see them

At my shelves

 

And know they

Mind me none 

 

They seize my poems,

My pretty books

 

And toss them

Near the door;

 

Then someone cries,

"There are more things!"

And I hear laughter roar!

 

Point is that nothing

That I prized was prized

 

By others, too;

 

Point is that I am here alone,

Not of the noble few

 

Point is that all men

Die the same -

 

Point is that what we dare,

 

Belongs forever to a past

The present cannot share.

 

----------

 

There is no Remembrance

Of Former Things , -Nor Will There Be

Any Remembrance of Later Things

 

-Ecclesiastes 1:11

 

Thoughts of Camille Du Monde: Entry One

 

There is a saying in my realm that goes: “Nothing dies with greater sadness than the last rose of the summer, except the one that leaves no love behind.” But I must confess, I find this lord’s carping to be a kind of jest, as I can imagine no greater farce than the dead making faces at the living. Baptiste De Guerre was nearly eighty when he died, and the last decade of his life was spent alone in a small keep he built along our western wall. His friends had passed on years before and what relations he had, he never really knew, since he spent much of his childhood with his mother in the Languedoc, and later traveled with his father throughout the Spanish kingdoms. 

 

I know not much about this Blue Knight’s life, nor any of his friends, but my dear father knew him by degrees and said De Guerre lost both a lady and an infant girl unto a pestilence before he left our realm; and though but only briefly, he was happy in their love. He had, by grace, survived the storms of youth but died in loneliness that did not well become old age or the loves he might have known. No doubt, he was a true and Christian soul, and yet I think he died a troubled man. Why so? His years were graced with some achievement, and my father said he was most envied and well-liked much of his life, and knew that this was so. But when the mind is brought to heel by death, good fortune takes on a lesser value because what glosses present gains is rubbed dull by darkest knowledge. Yet, all men must wear a mask at times, and no man knows another in any way that matters in the end.

 

Some speculate about the nature of this noble’s life, for when a brooding man conducts his affairs in disparate episodes, there is a special curiosity about the things he does and the choices that he makes, which often leads to the telling of some far-fetched stories about him. One such tale speaks of a time in old Byzantium, when moved by some strange vision that he saw, he climbed the column of a ruin and stayed there many days. There he sat, a spectacle above the marketplace, praying loudly in a foreign tongue and sometimes shouting in a voice that seemed not his. Crowds gathered over time and marveled at the sight. Some scaled the column to bathe and kiss his feet, while others remained beneath, repeating the prayers he uttered. When he descended, he became a kind of prophet and many followed him to Acre where it is said he healed the sick and fasted for a year.