Haunt of Thieves: part two
Haunt of Thieves
Part Two
A stranger to Gafeidda,
Bitter-hearted refugee who mistrusts this tale
And tells the Shepherd, “They are thieves, to be sure.
Friends of yours. You the dog and they the vultures;
theirs no sanctified nest, no god’s dwelling-place
defiled.
Nor will you let me
Know your name
(your belief is told in practice; and your act is hid from sight)
Shepherd, I live by gleaning. I have no coin, no noble name
To bargain with, my labor alone; and what I fear
Is to be made prisoner
For they say the jailer likes his charges quiet,
And that he gives them nothing other men might
want
They say he offers crumbs for bait and once informed
Marks his man and plays him for his sport”
“Pride,” the Shepherd says, “is coin.
This is so. There are those who will break you for it;
count as gain the taking of it. Run! And where the path grows steep
And when the hound’s maw snatches at your feet
When you fall, and flail at a blackened shape
And find it not a root
For indeed, they’ve charred a sign on every stone
Severed hands of venturers and scattered bones
You hear them now, Gafeidda, the chattering crows
Nothing frightens them
They can be rousted only when the glowing coals
Come in a rain from the pinnacle
And your living hands and eyes
Will seem to the carrion bird akin
To those of dead men she has feasted on
Pride…Gafeidda, you will not die
To me, your thought is plain
Moments pass, not one can you afford to waste
And still you waver and would rather hear
All I have to tell
I tell no more than you have heard below
You may cross at any time
You may return to the forest
And hope to go unseen
Yet though I say to you, ‘This way is death,
And that way also’
You feel, concealed within this choice, a thread…a light
A way to life
Haunt of Thieves
Haunt of Thieves (part three)
(2016, Stephanie Foster)