News has reached us here inside the Battle Haze that as a consequence of Certain Laws ignored and flouted openly, our Foes imprisoned You within the Stony Jaws of a most Formidable Tower: those Unfounded Words from which You cannot seize Escape. This must distress me, coming as it does upon the Heels of Your Kind Gaze, Your Very Gracious Favor toward my Cause and actions toward myself when we took pause to linger in the Garden. Love’s own Views are that there may be Necessary Flaws in any Winning System, but He goes about of late with much less Florid Prose—well, You and I both know the way He is.
I must make Full Repayment on the Dues we owe to Persons Innocent of Guise who may be injured—Love must not excuse us—but especially in Your case: You whose Ways are charming, good, and gentle. Therefore, accept my most Sincere Apologies and please await my Letter and the Keys we leave with the Incompetent Disease that calls herself Your Guardian. (Love pays her bribes and we despise her.) Curb Your sighs; there lie within the details of the Ruse we perpetrate upon the Tower’s Knees and Your Instructions for the night we raze the Castle and effect with Tender Claws the Liberation of Your Rubied Eyes.
We probably shall all be killed; we chose a Dangerous and Complicated Maze of Paths to win You back—You’re worth a Graze or two upon the Shoulder—but it has the Markings of a Long Affair, and Blows will likely lead to Blood. The Eyes I praise may never see the Buds, the Pools, the Trees again, may never Welcome Love or rise to lock with mine if You do not enclose within the Secret Places and the Pews, with Urgency and Cunning, every Phrase—though such is not Your Nature.
Love would tease Your Curls and sport with You once more, He says, and I am ever dreaming of the Breeze that whispers in the Flowers—and the Gauze of clouds that wrap the Garden Wall because Narcissus’ Fountain laughs the way it does—and of the moment when I will enthuse with You about the Rose and Love and His Profound Illusions once again. He knows the Perfect Openness whose Blossom draws Your Face is all I ponder; You may quiz Him on it.
‘Til that Moment, Freedom lies outside our Grasp, and I maintain my Pose as ever, Yours, et cetera, as was and is Amour; we count the Passing Days.
Addendum unto Welcome from the sprays of genuine bemusement that are ties from Love to Earth, with all its fuzz and frizz. A little word as an addition flows as by the hand of Love, with grace and poise, and as by magic, settles, stops, and dries: You might, you silly little child, turn plows with just your goodness, desecrate ships’ prows with just your nature, slip between the glues that hold the cracks together, turn the screws away from where they turn, and move the saws along the boards until the Fountain spews its water through the castle—but this throws the whole of nature off its course; we’d rouse the anger of an older god who slays without regret, so cherish all that glows within your open face, which pales and shies from tricks. We will forgive the boy that stays within his borders—and that shrew who stews and sets her sights on sugared mead that cloys and turns her tongue to rumor and to grouse will find she cannot chew the very pies she bakes in her own oven. So the highs of life will come to he who drops supplies and spies the Garden as the workman mows.
~*~
Fair Welcome unto Dreaming Lover: ease your heart. Your soothing words to me are bees that fill my mouth with honey and that buzz their song into my ears, so when the crows croak loudly near my window, I hear coos of doves, because I know I will not lose your favor. Though I know I am unwise enough to welcome anyone who strays too close to me and to the Rose, surprise! you still desire my freedom. And Love grows unhappy when we’re parted; that’s a phase he’s never had before! so there’s a glaze of honor on my capture.
For I laze about and sing and read and lick the fuzz on too-ripe peaches—oh! I have new shoes!—I count the stalks on which the cricket plays and watch at night the pallid moonlit shows of stars and night birds’ babies: so my woes are not so many after all. My sprees of fancy fly in towers, too; the lows of life are merely boredom and goodbyes.
My guardian, of course, tries what she tries: she chortles, weeps, and scolds; she spits; she spies; she worries over me; she picks; she gnaws; she forces on my ears a horrid sleaze of stories that were better kept in sties among the putrid public and the fleas—but I can stand it ‘til you come: I bruise too beautifully upon my face and thighs to stop the stinging of the stinging flies, and there are lilac blooms and sweetest peas grown slowly up between the workmen’s hoes to scent the air wherein my tower sways.
I wait upon your letter with the fizz of full enthusiasm from my toes up to my hair. Of all the lucky boys on earth, I am the luckiest: I drowse in peace and wait for you to bring the hues of gem-encrusted glory to the bays of my unbroken windows—and the fees for life in such a place are tiny joys, so do not hurry to the walls that house my captor and myself with sticks and straws.
I hope you find the Rose before she dies, for that’s the most important thing. Your ploys are certain to succeed, however: cows are more observant than this woman. Browse among the lilacs when you come; the cries of all the birds there will recall the noise that so enchanted you when daytime froze beside the bushes. Tell Amour his clues are understood and that I miss his poise and his insane affection for his toys, of which I am but one. And when your crews come finally, whenever, like an ooze of sticky sap that seeps into the clays that hold the house together as it vies to stay upright, the stream of longing slows: I Welcome you; I Welcome all your vows.
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