I Thought Of A Moon

                    I Thought Of A Moon                           

                                       I                                     

   thought 

   of a moon on

     a planet over the world 

   with an angel with a star

   over Baby Jesus and Christmas

    began.

Poem and artwork by Hannah

(around age 6)

Merry Christmas to all of our wonderful followers! I've been waiting nearly a year to post this picture-poem combo, that I recited years ago, and, if I recall, my Mama scribbled down on a restaurant napkin. But it is difficult to recall, since it was around ten years ago.

Thanks for putting up with us for so long, what with our crazy posting schedules and our bizarre ways of thinking and everything else. I can't actually be here today to post this, it being Christmas morning. But I won't get into our special Christmas traditions now, though when you look into the numbers (number of celebrating guests, number of gifts, number of crockpots of food, number of injuries... no, forget that last part), it's really quite interesting. 

So, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, or even believe in Jesus Christ at all, I wish you a fantastic 25th, a fantastic rest-of-the-year, and a happy new year.

Ever

Ever

Five little girls, five steps they took 

To the clear and crystal babbling brook .

To the five berry bushes that grew down there, 

A-waving in the autumn air. 

On each little bush two berries grew, 

of white, green, red, and black and blue. 

Of the first little bush with berries green, 

One made you nice and the other mean. 

The second bush, with blackest berry, 

One made you sad, the other made merry. 

The third little bush, with berries blue, 

If you ate one you shrunk, the other... you grew. 

The fourth bush had berries, red as a rose, 

That changed the size and length of your nose. 

The fifth, berries white, as babies breath 

The one berry brought life, the other death. 

The very first girl... Anne, called she 

Was meaner than a bumble-bee. 

The second girl, by the name of Beth 

Had nearly cried herself to death. 

The third little girl, whose name was Cort, 

Happened to be extremely short. 

The fourth girl's name was Daffodil, 

A semi-truck her nose could fill. 

The fifth girl's name was simply... Ever. 

She was convinced that she would live forever. 

They traveled together to the quiet stream, 

Each with her own private dream. 

Anne from bush one, a green berry tore, 

Ate it and got nastier than before. 

Beth though, had no inner fears 

Ate a blackberry, and then drowned in her tears. 

A berry of blue, did Cort pick from bush three. 

She ate and then shrunk till too small to see. 

The giant-snozzed Daffodil ate a berry of red. 

Her nose swelled ten times and then squashed her down dead. 

The small simple Ever stared at the fifth bush. 

Then picked both berries and squashed them to mush. 

She took them both and ate them plain, 

And then walked back home, exactly the same. 

Despite all her confidence of immortality inside, 

At age 97... Ever up and died. 

By the way, the name of this post, or this poem, has nothing to do with Gail Carson Levine's book. Actually, the above is a poem I (Hannah) wrote in my notebook in two hours while my family ran errands and I sat waiting in the van, back in the November of 2011. The first few lines I came up with when I was about to fall asleep the night before.

It took a lot of thought to get all the colors and numbers and names to line up and rhyme at the same time. And did you notice the girls' names start with A, B, C, D and E? Maybe this is an indicator of genius... 

Trinity suggested that I put some of my poems up, like this one and the Clementine one, but as I've said, I can rarely write poems where someone doesn't die or something. I mean, really, Ever, for example, it's around 320 words, and I killed off five people. Well, I killed off three, technically Anne and Cort didn't die. I made horrible things happen to five people. That's just the writer in me. So continued poetry posts might or might not be a thing.

Tell me what you thought! Comments always make the day. My day, Trinity's day, just the day. And I'm sorry if I scared you with my... creepiness... *cough cough*. Not to say it won't happen again.

To God be the Glory,

Hannah 

A Bard's Telling

It's Hannah! Today I have a poem, or perhaps a legend or lore or ballad. I've been trying to think of the word for quite sometime. Perhaps an epic. For the past few days I've been calling it "A Bard's Telling".

It's dictated by Ohana Lost-tide, the scribe from this post, and tells the first part of the tale of the Dragon War (a battle in my second book).

korbox.deviantart.com

From coast to coast of the darkened land
The swords were passed from hand to hand
And ferry the news to hall and home
The devils are arrived to roam
To kill and crush and raze and burn 

A demon-king beast and blight of doom
Will raze the earth beneath our moon
Songs of mourning as warriors die
Mothers wail and children cry
Breaking of day, horrors to light 

As angers awaken
And fury will flame
For young children taken
The killers to blame

A righteous blood-wrath 
Will every face pass
For demons who dare
To darken our path 
As children of light
Lift eyes to the moon
And pray to the Lord
To save us from ruin

The heads of the family
Rise up to the call
To join with the thousands
To fire and to fall

Mothers and wives
Cling to husband and child
Songs of lamentation
Ascending and wild

Mingle with fading voices
Of men whose hearts burn
For a family to whom
They will never return

“So pull back the bows,
And let up a prayer,
Release bolts of death
Winging into the air.
Let’s summon our hearts
Unfailingly brave,
Remember our comrades
Who went to the grave.

“This is our land;
It was won by fair blood
Of our ancestors grand,
Long returned to the dust.
And these are our children;
They will not see death.
We will stand by to guard them
To our final breath.

“So pull back the bowstring,
And send up a cry,
To our faithful God,
That He won’t let us die.
And summon your hearts
Unfailingly brave,
Forget not your comrades
Who went to the grave.

“And these are our lives; 
They will not be controlled
But by king and by God,
And hearts cannot be sold.
And this is a home,
Ere protected with love.
If you steal it away,
You can bet there’ll be blood.

“So raise up the shields,
And raise up a shout,
With cries strung with victory
Let courage ring out,
And summon a song
Unfailingly brave,
To honor our comrades 
Who went to the grave.”


I've had a bit of practice doing poems, but this may very well be the first that I finished without a modicum of ridiculousness. I may later put on some of the others I've done, if I judge them not too gory or insanely strange (really, I've rewritten Clementine as a story about a gluttonous daughter of a rich guy in London).
This was heavily inspired by what I remember from reading Beowulf, and I was careful not to turn flippant, because, after all, it's an epic about a battle, and while battles are often told to be full of glory, they're definitely very frightful and devastating. I was also inspired to write a melancholy narrative-like poem by songs like Misty Mountains (I like Stephen J. Anderson and Shaun Canon's version), Tale of The Tongues, Age of Aggression, and Age of Oppression from Skyrim (look up Malukah's version on Youtube!). I actually have a recording of me singing the last part of the poem to the tune of Age of Aggression - or Age of Oppression, not sure which -that I am not going to put on here (so please don't ask, you'll be disappointed).

So what do you think? I seriously love comments and feedback. Just don't ask for aforementioned recording.


Sosrin God ignt eht ceallian,
(To God be the Glory)
Hannah