The Night Caller
by Dimitri Rimsky
Were Unbound
where would he go?
Would he
return
to the lover
to whose hearth
he first
brought the fire?
Would she be
there
for him?
Not likely
Oh,
at first
She stayed
close to him
till the
screams
drove her Mad
with despair,
till the flapping wings
haunted her sleep
till she
could not face
another day
of tending
an endless
wound.
So she took
the embers
And
left him
on his rock.
left him chained
in the shadow
of the bird
left him
to suffer alone
He
understood.
He forgave her.
What
else could he do?
And she walked
away
till she couldn’t hear him
screaming
till the sun
cast no shadows over her
Till she broke the chains
of love
and
found a home
in a distant
world
and after some years
she learned to sleep
without
dreaming
So she was completely
unprepared
When the knocking
in the night
called
her
from the hearthside
called
her from her lover’s bed
Imagine her horror
opening the door
to find
him
collapsed
on the threshold
Gaping
wound in his side
The dust swirling up
in
the wind
of the beating
wings
Imagine her
horror
standing there
when he looked
up at her
imploring
to be taken in.
Safe from the reach
of
the bloody beak.
What would you do?
Oh certainly
Your first instinct
would be to drag him in
to
place him
by the
fire
he suffered
for to
clean his wounds
to hold him
to cry over
him
to rock him
in your arms
But what of her
life
Now!
What of
the Man calling to her
from a distant room?
What of the terror
of the
screaming
flapping
shadows
What of a future
forever pursued
by relentless talons
No you think.
No-one
could
be that cruel.
But isn't it
crueler still
to ask her
to
expect her
to suffer
forever with him?
That high
Is that the price
she must pay
for caring,
must she go on paying
forever?
Isn't it
fair
that she too
be unbound?
After all
Wasn't it he
Who defied
the law?
Wasn't this really
his punishment
and his alone?
She had only
complained of being cold!
She would have been as
warm
if he
had stayed
And held her.
Wasn’t it he
Who
betrayed
Her!
Wasn’t his
grand
defiance
really only an act
of vain
glory?
Wasn’t her heart broken
Wasn’t once enough?
She'd done what she could
But the screaming
the blood
and anguish
was too much.
He called to
her again
from
a distant room
and she
closed the door.
She would tell him
"It
was only the wind. "