Reinaluna and the Moonlit Bay

Theres a melody that plays in the stars above at night.

A moonlit melody of sunlit noontime.

It is a song that tells the story of one maiden who was never allowed to see the sun,

And what it meant to her to be with the moon.

There was once a princess who lived in the Irish Countryside. Her parents were poor villagers, who had once been royalty, but when the Scots had come to defeat the Irish the had been divested of all their wealth and allowed to remain in the country only if they kept their royalty a secret.

One day a mob of Scottish thieves rode to the cottage of the royal family and threatened the king and queen. They had been told that the villagers had discovered their neighbors true identity. The Scottish King was afraid that the villagers would revolt and raise the old king back up to power, and so he had hired these evil men to kill them for him.

The young princess hid under her bed trembling while she watched her father and mother sliced to bits before her eyes. The guards tramped through the house raiding it, stealing all the gold they could find, which wasn't much since the royal family's wealth had all been stolen before.

They latched the doors to the cottage, and lit the hay roof on fire. Violet flames licked the sky and the princess grew afraid. She was a very brave princess, though, and so she caught her screaming cat up into her arms and rushed upstairs to the loft. There was a hidden ladder out the back and she scrambled down to the wheat fields behind her home.

Just as she flew into the woods a burning swatch of hay came down on her. A young soldier who had been watching her escape ran surreptitiously to her side. He stomped out the fire singing her skin and gave her a lotion.

"Put this on your burns," he said, "You will heal, but you will no longer be able to go outside during the day. Burns this deep leave damage so deep that the sun will bring it back up again. Find somewhere safe, and hide, stay there until it is time, I will come find you."

The little girl ran with the cat in one arm, the lotion in the other, as if her life depended on it, for truly it did depend on her running. She reached the depths of the forest and took a deep breath. She had suffered grevious burns, her lips were parched and cracked and her skin was scarlet and blistering. She resolved to run just a little farther to her favorite hiding place.

It was a cave on the side of a cliff. It overlooked a lagoon that was sheltered by rocks that looked like bridges, creating a secret bay just outside of her new home.

The Princess lived there for several years. She did heal from her burns, but as the soldier had said, she was only able to go outside at night, for if she did she fell gravely ill, and grew better only with long periods of rest and much time on the water at night.

One day many years later a stranger came into the village at night. He sat at the bar of the inn and listened to the gossip of the town. Some visiting children were listening to an old Grandmother telling them stories...

"They say she wanders the bay at night, and sings, looking for the lost love who saved her life."

"Is it true Grandmother?"

"The bay is a beautiful area, at night the moon casts strange shadows."

"But Grandmother is she there?"

"She is alive in the moonlight."

The Innkeeper looked up surprised as the visiting soldier jolted out of the door, grabbing all of his things and disappeared into the twilight.

He heard the legend from the Grandmother's lips and his heart leapt. He knew it must be the princess of which she spoke. His mind had dwelt on the small girl that he helped that day when he was so young and he often wondered what had become of her. That is what brought him to this village once a year, searching for some hint of her existence, and for the first time, he knew someone had seen her.

He ran at lightning speed through the woods and scrambled down the cliffs into the bay, and then he waited.

Moments later a figure of insurpassable beauty wandered out into the moonlight. She wore a blue spun gown that glittered as if it itself were made of moonbeams, cherry blossoms spilled through the locks of hair that shared their hue with wheat lit by the golden sun. Midnight blue mist surrounded them, and basked the pair in a magical glow, and the long, lost soldier stepped into the light.

The Princess looked up. Something about the figure before her defied the fear she should have felt. She gazed at him, as he returned her gaze and the two stepped toward each other.

The Soldier stepped forward one last time, and held the Princess' hand in his. For a moment they stood in perfect silence. The moon spoke what their hearts knew.

The moon revealed their romance and in their silence they accepted it.

The Soldier pressed the Princess' hand to his lips and bowed before her.

"My Princess, will you have me?"

The princess inclined her head in assent, and he smiled.

"You will be my Princess Reinaluna, and you will live on in legend for all of time."

And so she has.

The moonlit bay still lies in the cliffs of Ireland, and those who visit sometimes say that they can hear the lovers singing of their romance.

A romance foretold by the moon and brought together by eternal, selfless love.

A Battle

There’s a place to which I journey,

When the desert is inside me.

It’s a place of many wonders-

So much joy and thunder-

That I am consumed.

It’s a place where those who wander,

Meet, embrace inner sight, and ponder,

What means much more to them,

Then any to enter that glen.

It’s sight, poet’s wonder.

It’s a magic poison infecting

Every fiber of my being.

A broken open tear wound,

Cowering at every sound,

And begging for silence.

A majestic inhabitation cries out,

For me to ascend, and shouts,

Screams, begs for sight,

Razor sharp against a night,

And mourns the dark.

It pummels inside my brain,

Beating my mournful refrain,

Terrorizing what sadness I hold,

And forcing me back to the fold,

While my lips linger.

The reversed smile of poisoned peace,

Holds within desire to be pleased,

At every moment borne,

But by my struggle it is shorn,

And I weep.

Tears,

Silence.

And I weep

Of time that has poisoned my inside,

And tempted to discourage sight.

Begging for every moment to evade

The dark that threatens to invade.

I beg for more grace

That He bestows in suffering

To bestow peace, love in everything,
The antidote to the harrowing wounds,

That utter the sounds of his hell-hounds.

I hold my head up,

And offer my heart in humble contemplation,

Remember the “Yes” of the Annunciation.

I collapse to beg for His Own Strength,
Whose Heart burns up the Love it sang.

I take up my cross,

The insignificant suffering of one,

Who never had a real wounds,

Who was injured at the simplest dart,

Who felt every pierce to the heart.

I hope He finds

My humble contemplation of His Love,

An approach to the grace of those above,

That He may find in His Heart not to scorn

The torn, unable, move of one who mourned.

I am consumed

And lost in a hope and night,

That obliterates all sight,

And I plead myself to elope,

To weep, To love, and To Hope.

Objection

On Listening to Paramore’s Emergency

In a world where children are bent and bruised,

Parents have left to find their fortune.

Their jagged edges are covered with bandages,

Hearts broken get cartoon caricatures.

“A man can turn his head only so many times,”

It has been said, “And say that he sees nothing:

Every where he turns his head, that is what he sees,

Nothing.

Yet he turns again, empty, brokenness, shattered skyscrapers,

Buried castles in the sky, and he tramples on their fairytales.

In a time when the world of children,

Has become nothing more than reality,

Dreams are burnt to ashes and a soot that suffocates.

Those meant to guard the little ones, offend most deep.

Their education in the ways of the world,

Brings down their own despair on the hopeful hearts

Of those who have not yet been jaded.

So children hold bruises behind their skin

And fairytales are buried with their castles.

Brick by boring brick, we build real life,

Devoid of true magic, left to seek the dark supernatural,

Equilibrium between beauty and rationality,

Crumples beneath the curses of the real.

C.S. Lewis On Fairytales

“By confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming ever happened, you would fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable. For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones; and the terrible figures are not merely terrible, but sublime. It would be nice if no little boy in bed, hearing or thinking he hears, a sound, were ever at all frightened. But if he is going to be frightened, I think it better that he should think of giants and dragons than merely of burglars. And I think St. George, or any bright champion in armour, is a better comfort than the idea of police.”
– “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”

Friendship Withered

Enveloped in the melancholy daylight, of a friendship that will not wither, I sit. I wait. For some message of what I am to do, what I am to say.

I don’t have the time to believe that all we do will be fulfilled,

But I dream that our loves will combine in eternal majesty.

I don’t want to be with you in romantic consummation,

I want to be peaceful in friendship aspirations.

But you greet in caring lovingness and I cold-shoulder turn,

Steel embraces heart inside behind my hurting bones.

I cannot show you an anger I can’t possess,

But somewhere do you hear a loneliness?

That I wish our friendship dead and consumed by dark eternal,

Because I wish our friendship always light and loved eternal.

Your destruction wrought a wound of paradox and night,

And left me without understanding, peace, and sight.

Now I sit, I wait, I wait to know. To know where our amoris love should go.

Confused at times I wait and linger, I tender caring show,

But yet when you pursue I wonder, where should our love go?

Just in Case

Artist-Miles

Song-Just in Case

Album-As Fast As You Can

The album cover of Miles’ As Fast as You Can is a picture of a highway at night. Lights are blurring past and the road stretches out ad infinitum. The sense of relaxed energy persuaded me to listen to the sample song listed on indie-music.com, Just in Case. The song would be the perfect song for a drive off into the twilight like that on the cover.

The song begins in way somewhat reminiscent to the keyboard sounds of Owl City’s Fireflies and it takes on a rock beat as it goes, filtering at times into sound effects that simulate the expansive feeling of nighttime driving. Rough vocals add a grittiness to the song, but they are female, making it just smooth enough to maintain a light feel.

The band, Miles, is a little-known independent band with music on independent websites. This song is an example of their light rock, almost jazzy feel, but they also have the more spunky Face to Face. It sounds more like a mix between The Fray and OK Go’s Here it Goes Again. It is a song that you could jam to in your bedroom at night, but it still maintains the bands characteristic feel.

This is a band that would fit perfectly in the libraries of music fans that appreciate meaningful lyrics as well as a contemplative feel to their music. Miles is not impossibly slow music, but it is upbeat just enough that one could relax and enjoy it while doing something else, and it would have a soothing effect. It is almost otherworldly in the peaceful effect it has, truly bringing its listener into the serenity of driving along on a scarcely lit highway, passing by the blur of bright lights.