Kira (a poem)

KIRA
T. D. Riley

Kira stands in the light of the moon,
Silver hair dancing in the wind,
At the first light of dawn she must be gone,
Though it's unsafe to ride 'till the fog has thinned.

'Never mind the danger,' Kira sighed.
'For at all costs I must be away
For I have committed a terrible crime,
And the risk what lays ahead does not outweigh.

'I did not mean to kill him, and he wished to die;
Yes nonetheless a price is on my head,
And so I must flee from the land I love,
Or else I'll find I'll soon have bled.'

She mounts her horse and away she rides,
On the path over the stormy sea,
And as her horse trips on the slippery road
And she tumbles off, she lets out a plea.

'Glory, won't you spare me from the plight,
As I fall through the air down to the sea,
But perhaps 'twould be better if I should die
Than meet the fate that waits for me.

'And while my flight could have led me away,
There's still a chance that I'd have been caught,
And the torture and cruelty 'twould await
Evidently appeal to me not.

"Yet is it better to escape that fate
By plunging onto the rocks below
That, jagged, grin up from the sea,
And in this moonlight glow?

'Or perhaps to live just one more day,
And face a death more filled with pain,
To be able to sleep just one more night
And awake to bright skies just once again?

'There! On the wall of the cliff I pass by
An outcropping I could surely grasp
But should I save myself just to die,
Or let this grim opportunity pass?'



She chose to fall and they found her there,
Staring up, dead, from the rocks below,
Dead for a crime she'd not meant to commit,
Herself a victim of her life's harsh flow.


[Maybe someone will comment on this one. o.O]