Private Message to Linus Moon, Insomniac

[alt_linus]

As arithmancy’s clear, so life is not.
There are no numbers cleanly totalled up,
No answer key in which to check the sum.
Our terms are undefined, and they protect
Their mystery. Sometimes they seem alike:
Coldness can look like strength, control like care.

With arithmancy, none of us need care;
We do the transformations and do not
Regret the plus and minus. All alike
It is to us what may go down or up,
For numbers have not lives we must protect
Nor hearts nor hopes go to make up that sum.

But hearts and hopes and lives did pay the sum
Of debts of honour, yea, and debts of care:
Care that was owed by those who would protect —
Who SHOULD protect — and yet protect did not!
Whose debts were thus compounded, eating up
Both principal and principle alike.

And innocent and ignorant alike
Did yield THEIR blood and lives to pay the sum —
Not yield; those lives were cruelly taken up!
Were spent without considering or care,
Struck down by spell, or rubble, or just not
Defended by the ones who should protect!

And yet some did endeavour to protect,
Did fight for friend and less-than-friend alike,
Defended even those who may have not
Appreciated them before. In sum,
Those who were sworn let fall the task of care,
But unexpected hands did lift it up,

Just like the statue, fall’n, was lifted up.
And from the vicious brutes they did protect
The wounded maiden! Fought with skill and care!
Defended those from every House alike
With no division, just a glorious sum
Of those who say to evil, “You shall not!”

Comments

[alt_linus]

’Tis clear that single strength protects us not;
We are up to the task only in sum,
In arithmancy and life’s care alike.

Note to self:
bouquet for Lav
card for LL