The Paladin and the Ranger

Armor is just a couple of
Misspellings to amore.
And in the summer before the end
two friends tried
to journey beyond the rounded edge
of the world, and along the way
debate the significance
of this linguistic proximity:

One wondered
Whether it was nobler
To leap into impossible frays
Into the spear-fringed maw of doubt
And not feel a thing
And to hear in the ring
Of the clash of steely surfaces,
and in breath and thundered pulse,
how alive it felt to be in love’s approach
and resist its endless resistances.

The other thought it wiser
to slip in silent
in shadowed recesses melt
naked and feeling
awake and watching
each movement’s echoes and ripples
with nothing unrisked
nothing to betray
one’s position or intent:
Ah, how alive it was to be in love’s approach
when it’s stoney glance could instant kill.

But their common enemies withdrew
like clouds on the far side of high blue mountains
and left their swords and stratagems untested.
And the summer day,
like the endurance of their attentions
was short.

So, tired on the foothills
at the bounds of their experience
they etched the secret names
of each their mortal foes into the earth
daring them witness their glaring challenges,
before rain or time washed them away.

And then they went home to dream another day.