art talks to each other about rocs and tea

Something delightful has happened.

This won’t make any sense unless you have read the story I posted as a Christmas present for you all–you still can read it, How to Wrap a Roc’s Egg, go ahead. But. My friend Mary has gone and written a poem to answer part of it. And she said I could post it for you to enjoy, so when you’ve finished the story, here is the poem.

Bosko the Bold’s Last Exploit

by Mary Alexandra Agner

I do miss tea, you know.

Iced especially, would be lovely

but the dreams of chill and clink

melt quickly under equator sun,

and canon fire lacks, as accompaniment.

I write with some regret, Anna—

not for the rocs themselves,

or breaking our agreement,

nor thirty years of high sea hijinks

helping myself to gold and spice,

yardarms and yeomen,

what books the babies let me read

between their dives of great destruction.

Nor all the stars that you will never see in Sweden.

I regret I took away your dream

even while you gave me one

I didn’t know held all my happiness.

I hope you got your tea, acres of plants

turning that northern light to tart

and complex on the taster’s tongue.

I hope this letter finds its way to you.

My notoriety is built on flame and claw

and once my last breath slips away

so will the rocs.

What fame I leave may be insufficient postage.

(Isn’t that lovely? I couldn’t be more pleased, both with the thing itself and with the meta-thing of it.)

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux