Far Off: Sherwood

Chiming around me, the notes begin,
Silvery baubles on the wind,
Tiny bells that cannot be understood,
Ringing from the depths of Sherwood,
Telling a tale from outside and within.

If I close my eyes, I can see them:
The men that made the wood a gem,
Dressed in brown cloth and in green,
The better to walk the forest unseen,
With tiny bells ringing on each hem.

No, they could not hear the bells
That followed them down their bright dells,
For the bells are the memories that return,
That in my mind quiver, ring, and burn,
That tell the tale of Sherwood, and naught else.

I can see, if I but close my eyes,
The look of the trees in swift sunrise,
The thumping, when the birds would sing,
That underscored them: arrows, loosed from string,
Leaping from the bow to the target eagle-wise.

One man only would practice this early,
When all his companions still lay surly:
Robin, with a cap and boots decked out in dew,
Clothes smelling of wild chive and rue,
Loosing his arrows to scatter the pearly

Dewdrops and the mist that lay so low
Upon the ground that it looked like snow.
The target shook with the impact of blades
Winged that could swoop through greening glades,
And take down deer before they felt the blow.

Robin, dark eyes narrowed, his hands flying,
Would loose the arrows that someday dying
And him might come just in time between,
Besides providing food in Sherwood green.
When he loosed the last, the others lying

Would just be stirring: the lazy tune
Rising from the harp last played at moon
Would mark the presence of Alan o' the Dale,
While on the other side of their hidden vale
Would be Little John, rising, not yet but soon.

And in a corner Will Scarlet his wicked knives
Would be sharpening, for the taking of lives.
And Friar Tuck would be coming to his feet,
Slow like a bear, his expression sweet;
To make prayerful this band of men he strives.

For suddenly, no longer distant, I am there.
Up there rises Maid Marian most fair,
Stepping out into the light of morning,
Creeping up on Robin without warning.
But he hears the whisper of her hair.

He spins and kisses her, his hands catching
In her long dark hair, and handfuls snatching.
He steps back, tugging like a child,
While Marian follows and chides him the while,
Her hand and then lips on his latching.

They eat cold meat from the night before,
Then lope into the forest to renew their store.
The bells, and thus my mind, their tracks follow,
Into the heart of the haunt of the swallow,
Into fantasy's portal and legend's door.

Sherwood's foilage is fierce, prouder than art,
So verdant that it shatters my beating heart,
So beautiful that it rebuilds it again.
I swoop along in the tracks of the merry men,
Watching as like wolves they split apart.

And then, as up ahead I see a dusty road,
And hear a wagon creaking 'neath its load,
I realize that I was wrong; not to hunt
They go, but to make the fat pigs grunt,
And give back the money and food they stole.

Armored guards are walking near the wagon,
But no more chance than ale in a flagon
Before the lips of a thirsty man have they.
The winged arrows come whirring to slay,
And they wither as before the breath of dragon.

The carters sit trembling as the men appear,
Robin in the lead of them, their greatest fear.
He nods, and the carters scramble from the pile.
The men leap up nimbly, and in a short while
The road of both carts and bodies is clear.

Then they go off to take back the gold,
To give it to its owners, and wonder behold
Dawning in the eyes of those they save.
People bow to them, call them noble and brave,
But Robin sits through it all looking old.

His gaze strays off and back to the good
Home that he knows: the boughs of Sherwood.
His eyes kindle with longing and with fire.
Marian, his love, can sense his desire,
And watches him as she has since he stood

On the grass in front of the Sherriff and king,
Making the arrows, the bow, and her heart sing.
She restrains him with a hand on his arm.
He gives her a smile, quick and warm
As a glance of sunlight or flap of the string.

Then the gold and gems are given, and they 
Are down the road and the hill and away.
Robin draws in a deep breath as back under,
Into the heart of Sherwood and wonder
They go, and hide in dusky night from the day.

Under a drape of cloth of the purest scarlet-
That is the flaming western sunset-
That can be seen through a gap in the trees,
Close by a flowing stream where blows the breeze,
Robin and Marian lie where they can forget

That their king is far from his homeland's stars,
Prisoner of his Crusades and endless wars.
He lies with his head cradled in her lap.
She strokes his brow, and hopes he will nap.
But he lies awake, and watches the swinging cars

Of constellations, and the uprising moon.
Marian can bear no more of his staring soon,
And bends down and renews the ties of their bliss
With the gentleness of her hands and kiss.
Robin gives himself up to her magic rune,

And they lie there beside the running water
Still lit with light as lurid as torch or slaughter.
Then the darkness fades softly back in,
And covers them with a cloth of night and wind,
Robin and Marian, the forest's son and daughter.

And then I am back, standing and blinking,
Hearing the fainter sounds of the bells tinkling,
And borne once more away from Sherwood night
To stand in my own world, in inferior light.
I bow my head and wonder what I was thinking

To think that Sherwood still lives, when I know
That Robin and his merry men died long ago,
If they ever lived beneath her boughs at all.
But as my heart and my hopes and my dreams fall,
I hear a call as cold and as clear as snow,

The call of a hunting horn from tree to tree,
Roaming like the wind, as swift and as free.
I lift my head, feeling my heart begin to beat
As I hear the light tread of their scuffing feet,
As I stand once more on the shores of a sea

That has gleamed in the past, and forever gleams.
The fading light of the sun, the restless beams
Of the moon that uprises, then fades and dies,
Do not make of the old stories and the past lies.
Something in Sherwood of that past still dreams,

And if Robin never ran there, seen or unseen,
What do the limits of reality  mean?
Perhaps not in this wood, but in another,
He and Marian paced, lover beside lover,
Their dark eyes shining beneath the boughs green.