They say love’s a blessing, they say love’s a curse,
They say choice is a freedom and freedoms a choice
But my freedom was hollow, my choices brought sorrow
And love gave me talons and twisted my voice

Who, who, who was I
But May rain and root of the flowered hillside
I was as I was made
I was as I had grown
Petelled and perfect
Whole and alone.

Hoof beats on the mountain
Roots receive vibrations
Moon reveals two men
On a sly midnight excursion
Here they come now
Cross the threshold
From deep oak shadow
To rippling silver meadow
Darkness hanging on unrevealed intentions
Swinging off horses, knee deep in fern
Swords at their belts sheathed in iron
In creeps the world beyond
Intruding on my dream-like refuge
Turns leaf to limb, fragrance to thought
Consciousness constructed, intuition forgot.

Who, who, who were those
That from bloomless mountains
that bleak morning rode;
An ancient enchanter of grandest degree
A king of great splendor and high heraldry
And behind him a maiden, lovely as the dawn
Her eyes still like violets, but her harmony gone.

Once I was silent,
mere substance, cycle, spirit,
Secure in graceful regularity
Pristine in purposeful passivity
-uprooted, concentrated, converted
To an aching, obeying perceiver
Able by creation to adore, judge, murder,
Limited to loyalty by that same creator.
Proportioned, possessed, prized,
Contorted, controlled, customized
Given feet, forbidden to wander
Given a voice, forbidden to wonder
Given a conscience, forbidden to judge
Given a heart and expected to love.

Who, who, who was he
But freedom, choice love
One man of all three
But foremost an option
An action, sweet escape
A first far-flung measure
to forge my own fate.

Was it love or rebellion I sought in his arms?
Though handsome, by far
His greatest of charms
Was not his dark eyes, his wit or his laughter
but how he held no claim as my master.

Not for love of me
Did my husband take offense
But for the breach
Of indefinable dominance
A kings wife, a treasure
A maiden of flowers
Composed for his pleasure
And a trophy of honor.
Please, punish me,
Your disgrace of a bride
Acknowledge that she
Had the power to decide.

Who, who, who were we
But beings entangled
By our own humanity.
Flowers or flesh,
Bloom, conceive, die,
They asked for their forms
No more than I.

Of course it was unthinkable
To hold my heart accountable
The thief, the man responsible
He died in hot blood
Impaled by a spear
That had made it through both death and stone
Hurled by the cold hand of my former captor
Who, finding no dignity in death,
Simply returned, unexpected, uninvited
To return the unspeakable favor.

Keeper and lover destroyed
Their legacy a re-opened grave
And a blood-stained boulder
The creator left to his shame,
Faced down by his errors,
I, available for blame, got feathers.

Who, who, who am I
A soundless swooper
With wide amber eyes
A skulker, a stalker
A sinuous shadow
That drifts through the dark
Above flowerless meadows
Kept in a cage of muscle and bone
Bound in a body that isn’t my own
Barred from the sunlight,
I weaken and wither
My feathers drop off
And like petals, scatter.