Tomás Canas’s Reviews > Toll the Hounds > Status Update

And this was a night like any other, a skein of expectations and anticipations, revelations and perturbations. Look around. Look around! On all sides, day and night, light and dark! Every step taken with the firm resolve to believe in the solid ground awaiting it. Every step, one after another, again and again, and no perilous ledge yawns ahead, oh no. Step and step, now, step and step—

See a bored child with a stick–and see how every beast nearby flees, understanding well what is now possible and, indeed, probable. See the child, eyes scanning the ground, swinging the stick down to crush insects, to thrash flowers, to wage a war of mayhem.Replace the stick with a sword.Explain how guilt need not be considered when the ones who must die are the enemy.
Unleash them, these children with the avid eyes

Out on the lake the water glittered with golden tears.
As if the sun might relinquish its hard glare and, for just this one moment, weep for the fate of a child.

Arrivals.

Glory and portent, delightful reunion and terrible imminence, winged this and winged that and escapes and releases and pending clashes and nefarious demands for recompense over a single mouthful of spat wine, such a night!

Such a night!

Such a good start!

Oh frail city!

Where strangers arrive

Pushing into cracks

There to abide


Oh blue city!

Old friends gather sighs

At the foot of docks

After the tide


Uncrowned city!

Where sparrows alight

In spider tracks

On sills well high


Doomed city!

Closing comes the night

History awakens

Here to abide