Title: Sonnet - Echoes
Fandom: Silmarillion
Challenge: Trail
Other prompt:
Rating: G
Length: 162
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zhie for encouragement & sanity-checking.
Summary: What trail this?


What path is this that lies athwart the grain of ancient ground,
Against the sun, the wheeling road of fixed and wand'ring stars?
What shadows these, that plod, or run, but make no earthly sound
That waking ears might hear, but dreaming -- oh the rasp of scars
Reluctant, eager feet on stone, up in the [ghosts of] trees
In one direction: ever West, as if the world weren't round
Or old and ceded unto Men, and wide yet were the seas;
And fast Angainor Melkor held in Mandos, chained and bound
Whence do they process? Are they memory or only dream?
And why might we perceive them or their echoes in this age?
We may mourn but cannot follow, our songs but faintly seem
To catch the least of them: their beauty, grace, or ancient rage
    What is the point of knowing roads once ran from lands now drowned
    That trail not ours to take: Our fates from other threads are wound