Large Fierce Mammal

On day 7 of this Long Winter’s Night, I related The Strange Case of the Caller at the Library Window, and even as I did, I knew the tale was far from over. Interestingly, I found myself shedding more than a few tears as I wrote this. Tell me if you feel the same reading it.

The Strange Case of the Caller at the Library Window (Epilogue)

By LFM

I sat upon my reading chair
My head anod as passed the day,
And even now on thinking back,
What thoughts were thought, I cannot say.

The waning sun aroused my mind,
Though not from sleep, but reverie,
A glass of whisky in my hand,
The Raven lying next to me.

Both mind and eye now sought the pane,
Now long since closed against the chill,
To watch the day’s last glimmer die
In beauty there behind the hill.

When drained of purple lay the sky
In blackest black against the glow,
The shadow Birch Trees spoke to me
Stark black against the gleaming snow.

I started then, as from a shock!
Though this day’s Sun was dead to me,
A fulsome Moon in zenith stood,
Illumined by His memory.

Thence to my feet, I lit the lamp,
And looked to my recumbent guest.
I knelt and spoke a promise then,
A gentle hand upon his breast.

An hour hence, beneath my arm,
The cradled Raven, Birchen wrapped,
I snowshod strode beneath the Moon
Upon the trail my heart had mapped.

And finally, within a glade
Of snow cloaked Spruce in mossy gown,
I found for him a crook of branch,
And that was where I laid him down.

I didn’t know the words to speak
A Raven might think right, and so
I drank a toast of half my flask,
And poured the rest upon the snow.

Each year, upon the day he died,
I read a book – you know the tome,
Thence to his grove with meat and cheese,
And hearty beer to wash it home.