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Prayer For a Red Flower
Note: the following text is a translation from Corvish to English. There are some inaccuracies, as the translation cannot capture Corvidaen meter and rhyme.
Originally taken from a wall carving during the siege of Amberose, year 632.
Oh little red flower
why do you grow
in soil so foreign,
so far from home?
Do your vines still wander
‘neath the dirt and the rain?
Does your soul sprout
from seeds,
to roots,
to petals,
then decay?
Little red flower,
how the autumns come,
and the leaves of the summer
now watered in blood.
And the days are struck
in the fevers of old;
as branches drift
in the summer
to the fall,
then bronzing
to gold.
Little red flower
trampled under boot,
stomped into mud
like fire makes soot.
Will pollen mist
from your petals again?
Or will your children drift where the wind
is careless
and thin?
And do you give
your blossoms away
to a stranger’s hands?
Or will you surrender
to rain
and light
of a familiar land?
Do your roots
stretch back to home?
To a patch of sunlight
and soil of old,
a place overgrown and forgotten,
one to call your own?
- Unnamed Author
Oliver Hart
Author of Foxing, Leaves of Fall, Liquid Courage, Beating the Heat, A Red Winter, Weber’s Gambit, and many other stories. He primarily writes hmofa, but dabbles in most genres. Interests include, writing, reading, technology, and music.
Stories: Foxing, The Leaves of Fall