Shall I fetch you a drink?
Much have you laboured, much
have the sun upon your
back, much have the salted ground -
for which you've salted, and treaded -

Shall I offer you nectar?
None sweet and sticky upon a tongue
is quite the delight - oh but
leeching is the syrup upon your throat
which sticks and slips itself down to your core
-

If I offer water, for you.
Neither cool nor pure.
A flavour of nothing good,
or memorable
or bad.
But upon a tongue, should you drink
and subsume of it
your mind
and body - revitalize -
and the sun no longer shadow cool winds
and the thirst sate.

- From one cup to another -
As sun passes into cool dark to be
sun once more and the night which is not night yet shade dressed as dark.
Must we endure frivolities as these.
(This secret is the truth we know,)
again. Why clouds -
not lakes, or wells, or taverns-
is what it seems
to take to fill a parched gullet.


-MU-

Penned by my hand on the 17th of Miraman, in the year 891 AF.