(I started this in June 2023, around the same time I was starting to think of Hags of the Thorn. Which meant I was thinking of Ballads from a Distant Star. Which meant I was thinking of Caitlyn Paxson. I don’t have a tune for it, but nor did I think it should just repine in my journal forever…)
Caitlyn, it’s been a long time
Since the mines
Since the days all of silver and ore
My hair has gone gray
And my hips lost their sway
But you’ll still find me dancing
On festival days
How have you been since that dawn
In the dim
When you stood in your black cotton dress?
Saying “Clara, I loathe
All this labor and load
I’m longing to wander
Our unquiet roads”
Caitlyn, you vanished from mountain
And glen
When you shook off the dust and the grime
Like a knight on a hill
Standing tall and so still
And the mists rose to take you
O wither they willed
Caitlyn, we’ve changed since that day
That you left
Our walls are of good solid stone
The roads are all paved
We’re no longer enslaved
We don’t speak of silver
Still less of the ways
Wherever you wander, O knight
of the storms
On your horse made of fog and of rain
I’ve poured you an ale
And stored many a tale
And my door is ajar
Should you ride through the veil
Should you ever return to your town
And your friend
With your banner of green and your sword
Though you’ve passed into lore
I remain, evermore
Your Clara, who loves you
From shore to the shore
For shore to the silvery shore
C.S.E. Cooney 