Lament for Pelinal

[Scholars disagree as to whether Morihaus’ famous lament belongs in the fragmentary volumes of “The Song of Pelinal” or the bull-god’s own so-called memoir, “The Adabal-a”. Certainly it could belong to either, given that both of those texts celebrate the great affection between these immortals. History and indecision, however, have maneuvered the “Lament for Pelinal” into the relative obscurity of secondary sources associated with the Alessian Rebellion.]

And the Mor bull flew from the Taking,

Where the alien kings had left Pelinal

Eight-wise – leaking, talking fool talk

To gnash treetops, sending southern leaves

Like his mother’s rain – Sky Goddess Son

And suddenly it was a canvas of fall

For his horns were spirals of gore

Painting them doom-eyed

Thunder-color hit the river’s edge,

Surprising it, distempered

This was jacklight lost to him

This was his landing-madness

Given hoof-point

And all the trajectory of took-away

Bent inward, storied to an end

“Pelinal-ada, again partitioned, what echo is

Unsatisfied still?

Whose dream is mumbling drunk?

I would break the compass of the map

And become it in better brass

And skin myself in country

So I could contain each piece of you

They hid, to conjure one precious

Return of your dumb laughter

“If I could be assured the rude stars

Of our continuing houses

Would not already be in fits of remake

Covetous, and yet stepping like soft love

That belongs outside the hands

Made fast at shrine, with candle-strides

So as not to wake the unsleeping

Smack of insect scruple

“Pelinal-ada, you lay in longest quiet,

Making it less easy to stay here between

The wave-fields of time,

Where forms adorn ideas rather

Than the insane else of heaven

Whose drapery now always, always

Patterns those aims to the regular mold

“Who set us to self-hubris, to burnt ribbons

Of kindred fugue?

Which tremble would do it worse?

If my own abeyance might stamp summer

Back into your pallid vanish,

Would I lift this hoof again, assigned?”