If I Were a Poet

“In the beginning was the land,
and in the land was man,
and in man was the beginning.”

— The Book of Civîd’thama, chapter 1, verse 1

 
On the eastern shore of Silvre-arr
they looked across the waves toward the rising moons,
unsure of what awaited them,
but sure that they must go,
as sure as the rocks on which they stood.

This was before the division of tongues,
before the Lunitskìqa,
the coming of the Old Ones.
There was a great famine,
seven years of drought,
so what did it matter if death found them on the sea?
Death would find them here too—
a different kind of death no doubt,
but just as irrefutable.

And so, after much weeping and farewells,
they set off into the east.
In one version of the story
they make it to Onolo;
in another version, they are lost in a storm,
about to die, when they are rescued by an Onolan sailing ship.
In either case, they never returned,
but the Arra, now knowing they weren’t alone,
joined forces, and Silvre was saved.

There are some of course who say it’s all a myth,
but I have seen, with my own eyes,
the staves of Tèm and Pe-el, with their carved initials,
in a museum in Onolo-Meethrimya.

I could tell a thousand other stories—
tales of the First Age,
when giants walked among us,
when we ate freely
from the Tree of Life,
before the Old Ones came,
and everything changed.