The Courtyard Ghosts – Part Four – The Mason and The Blacksmith

Part four and final entry of The Courtyard Ghosts is written by the Mason and the Blacksmith. From their unique perspective they have witnessed this story unfold over the years and across the lives of our two lovers. Their contribution here is their memorial.

The Courtyard Ghosts
Part Four
The Mason and The Blacksmith

Aye, we two, on courtyard’s berm
do work for better tradin’.
Our skills in alabaster stone
and iron braids of laden.

Our shops adjoin, near out of view
from the daily dance that plays on two
at courtyard fountain and parapet,
where into morning sun we set
our eyes each day to witness love in passin’,
and watch it quickly walk away with nod acknowledged fashion.

My friend and I, some years we’ve spent
at toil in craft to pay the rent,
and many grand designs we’ve made –
as people of this little burg have found us worthy to be paid
and keep coming back for more –

Strange witness thus,
we’ve seen from just
a stone’s throw beyond our courtyard’s fountain,
in backdrop, man and woman love,
silhouetted still before the mountain’s
distant horizon breakin’.

Yet each day we’ve watched this dance of love,
and longing theirs ne’er one has taken –
and so to us, two hearts is breakin’…

So many years has passed us by,
the two of us turn slow to grey,
yet morning coffee finds us fixed
to watch this lover’s play –
each day –
each day –

And so we’ve seen the two in love
come to age, set old and grey,
weakness in their limbs and features
deny the youth of love they play –

Yet still, today –
we see them come no more…

The parapet where once she sat
to take his smile and nod for hers,
is shuttered shut and weather worn,
so closes in for death, for sure –
And mornings now are silent still,
for ne’er a set of hooves do pass,
as he would ride to fountain there
to gaze upon his lass,
and long to love her more –
no more…

So as the quiet courtyard yields,
no light of love and life is found
by two quiet working watchers here
on the berm at courtyard’s ground.
The silence stifles all the hope
once held that theirs would manifest,
now morning holds just nature’s song,
and the truth that two have laid to rest –
their love, a nod and smile.

Thus we two commission ours,
as gift to them and courtyard green,
paid of what we’ve learned of love,
and to our own indenture glean
that they must live immortal,
captured in the morning’s light,
that they in quiet courtyard’s echo
may always feel the light of such unspoken love –
and we that hold the living,
take truth in such to rise above
and reach for such a light.

Two ghosts we leave for courtyard’s night.
Two souls we leave in love…