Wisdom

With eyes as brown as bronze and hair as black as onyx,

the woman in the hooded cloak

descended into the village.

Her air was calm, her footsteps, gentle.

She awed all those who saw her.

The woman walked without being stopped

into the great meeting hall,

where a trial was slowly treading to an end.

All eyes turned to her yet hers went to none.

She delicately, gracefully sat in the corner,

and never spoke until the proceedings were done.

The one in shackles looked as he stood

with eyes filled with pain and anguish

and saw something that made him gasp.

A phantom of someone once loved.

Tears pooled and fled from his eyes

and he collapsed to the ground.

For a solitary breath of time,

no one moved and nothing happened.

Then the prisoner was hauled to his feet,

his guards dutifully took him back to the prison.

She stood up with eerie serenity,

her thoughts tangled with all that she had witnessed.

Eventually the woman turned to another who had attended the court,

and asked, "Who was that man, the one of the trial?'

The villager replied, "he was a great general,

who led his army to destroy us,

but in his crowning moment of triumph,

he faltered at the feet of a boy,

our very own shoemaker's apprentice, Blake.

No one knows why."

With these words came a great revelation.

The mysterious stranger to the village finally understood

what had transpired.

She went to the inn to sleep and ponder through the night.

In the morning, her necessary course of action was more desired.

There was a slow marching tune,

softly played as the general was led to the gallows,

for that was his fate, so decided by the trial.

At the sun's early rise,

when a life was about to fade and die,

a sudden, unexpected change of events was

decreed by fate and destiny alike.

She stood before the sun, shadowing a withering man.

With a solemn voice she spoke to all who would listen.

"This man whom you wish to kill, I know him well.

Once, oh so very long ago, I held him dear in my heart.

We were lovers in a much happier tale.

Please, before you take his final breath away,

allow me to speak with him."

The crowd silently stepped aside.

"Why?" The man cried at her. "Why have you returned to me

from the grave I sent you to?

Has my ever present grief not soothed your ghostly soul?"

His head fell to the mud in defeat.

"Haunt me as you wish. I dare not ask your forgiveness."

"My dear, my darling, that day

now so long ago, did not end as you thought it did.

You fled before the doctors arrived

and mended my wounds, forcing me to live.

My soul has never once expired,

not at your hand or at anyone else's.

I lived and ever since have sought you out,

but, until this day, I could not find you.

There is something that you must—"

Ever so tentatively, a boy,

The one who's life was spared by his eyes,

approached the sorrowful couple.

"I'm sorry," he stammered. "Your time is up."

Both the saved and the condemned turned to

face the boy.

The man saw the phantom's eyes

and the woman saw a child grown.

Without reason or warning,

the phantom woman grasped the shoulder

of the boy she had never forgotten.

"Before the last strike of the law,

do you know who your mother and father are?'

"No," responded the boy. "I know not who brought me into the world."

I've walked all my years the apprentice

of a shoemaker.

I have never wondered for what I could never know."

There was a pause.

"My name is Blake."

The phantom woman cried out like a soul newly born.

"Please believe, my child, when I say,

I am your mother, and

this man, who your people condemned to death,

is your father."

"WHAT?"

Then as sudden as sudden can be,

the bell in its tower tolled its dreary song.

The time had come for the man to die.

Two solemn solders came forward

and dragged him to his circular rope.

"I don't—stop—please—explain!"

a very flustered Blake shouted.

His mother merely gave him a sad smile.

"Long ago, before this war that has torn apart our world,

two lovers met in the twinkling sunshine.

They conceived together a child,

but within an hour of his birth, I, his mother,

spirited him away to a place that had not yet known grief,

so that he may live a life of peace."

Blake heard all this and began to run.

He tore his father's death away from his neck.

"Do not kill this man!" He commanded his people.

"He is my father!"

With a great sigh and shudder of the strongest kind,

the phantom woman gave herself to the wind.

She had drawn all her strength to return and

bring those she had loved together in unity.

Now that that deed was done

she needed to return to the warm, waiting hand of death.

For when she told the man she loved she had remained alive,

The woman had lied.

She was a phantom, nothing more.

Thus,

after a long and tiresome inquiry,

it was decreed by the court of the village,

that if he never went to war again,

Blake's father would be allowed to live.

He only received this gracious pardon because

if he were to die, his son would be orphaned

and that was displeasing to everyone around.

Years and years past

in both peace and prosperity.

Blake and his father grew to be kind to one another

and they lived their lives happily,

while, unknowingly, being smiled upon by a phantom.