New Poem: Jan-u-wine's 'Frodo's Dreme of Fimbrethil & Undómiel'.

[mechtild]

~*~

~ Ent-wives dancing.


This represents a hiatus in the screencap posts (Galadriel's Mirror in six parts is still being worked on, slowly). But I so admired and was so moved by a poem jan-u-wine recently wrote, I asked if I could post it here now.

The poem begins in the Undying Lands, Frodo dreaming speculatively of things that may or may not have occurred in Middle-earth. First he's thinking of the Entwife Fimbrethil, or Wandlimb, which was her Westron name. She was the Ent-wife Treebeard loved. She and her sisters, Treebeard told Merry and Pippin in TTT, strode off looking for lands of their own to tend, ages before. The Ent-wives had last been seen in what became the barren Brown Lands, across the great river and south of Lórien. Frodo next thinks/dreams of Undómiel (Quenya for "evening-maiden"), Arwen Evenstar.

What if Fimbrethil, with her surviving sisters, had come at last to Lórien? And what if Fimbrethil had been there when Arwen, after the death of Aragorn, had laid down to die upon Cerin Amroth?


~*~

There are no film scenes that illustrate this poem in a literal way. Still, I wanted to use some images from the films for the dreaming Frodo. There are several film scenes in which Frodo is shown sleeping. After much experimenting, I settled upon a series of images from his blissful rescue from Mt. Doom by the Eagles. I felt the series (with some ph0to-shopping)gave a sense of Frodo falling asleep and being borne off to other lands and other times, on the wings of dreams.

For the other images, I had to look beyond the films. There are no Ent-wives in LotR, and no scenes from the life of Arwen after the crowning of Aragorn. So, I used artworks that felt right, even if they did not literally depict my subjects.

These images appear further down.

I hope you enjoy this enchanted journey into Frodo's dreams as much as I did.




~*~

Frodo's Dreme of Fimbrethil & Undómiel

A/N: It has been a sadness to me that there is no mention of a meeting between Frodo and Treebeard, even though they certainly would have met when the hobbits (and company) passed through Isengard on their journey Home. Just as certainly, Merry and Pippin would have told Frodo the tale of their adventure with the Ents, and of the Ents' longing for their lost wives. Would Frodo not have been, at the very least, curious? Would he not have given much thought to these seeming-strange creatures, who played such a large role in the downfall of Isengard?

In this poem, Frodo, having sailed Over-Sea, dremes of the lands he has left behind forever, fancifully envisioning what might have become of not only the Ent-wives, but of another being as ageless (and bereft of husband) as they: the Evenstar, Arwen. Might these two destinies have been intertwined?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~



Upon the Tol: Frodo

Sun-tumbled,
wind-breathed,

the autumn

remembrance
of home-fires

waits

along the fine-dusted

wide
track of the road.

So far have I
walked

without thought
(or perhaps

in thought too
deep),

that the sweet,
smooth

limbs
of familiar trees,

(my trees),
give way

to saplings,

their slim,

pearl
fingers

upthrust,
shimmering

like harp strings
beneath a bronz'd Sun.

Silent,

this young grove,
as if all of time

rests
here,

waiting upon
magik,

resting upon the
cloak

of dreme.


It would not be amiss,
I think,

to rest,

myself,
in this place,

within
this magik

circle,
where the grass

bends

and whispers
greenly,

where the Sun winks
and

hides

beneath
the wide white of clouds.


And so I do:

rest,

feeling
strangely


*taken*,
feeling

oddly
at peace.


Between the music

of slender tree-strings
and the friendly whisper-touch of a small wind,

I dreme.

I dreme of places I have known,

of people I have loved,

of times and beings
I may never

touch.

Here,
in this place,

parted
from what I called "Home",

I dreme upon those who are lost.

Cradled in the gentle shade of her
hand-maidens,

I dreme
upon

Her.



























Cerin Amroth: Fimbrethil

How should they know me now?

How might

they
have known me

at all?

Ever my thoughts
were different from theirs,

lighter,
like the bright

dance
of the Netted Stars.

But now.....

too long to count in years
the time I have stood here,

I, and my sisters,
voices stilling,

dropping

down
into silence

until
they sleep

(if sleep this could be named).

They sleep,

and I can no more
awaken them.

About me they stay,
their circling arms

bejeweled with leaves of green,
of gold,

(of sun-blooded red,
even),

lifted in gentle greeting
(or tender farewell).

They do not feel
the solitary

step

that enters our silent grove.

This one.

Oh,
this one

we have known before.

We have known her before,
when there *was* a "we".

We have known her
when her woven step,

as light as the cool winds
that ride above the world,

was not alone.


They were fair,
she and he,

fair
for those who must needs be

dressed
in flesh-skin.

She is alone now,
this fair one,

the moon-pearl of her all but hidden
beneath a curtain'd tangle of midnight hair.

Before,
the lilt of her voice,

like pour'd music,
touched us,
gilding the day with song.

Now
she speaks not,

only her hand touching those who sleep,

touching
and letting go

with a grief that I might feel
even through bark-skin.

She stays thus,

and the water that
those who are of flesh

call 'tears'
makes rain-tracks
upon her face.

I do not know what it might mean
when she stoops to the ground.


She lies upon the good earth,
the rich brown of it,

the cool embrace of it.

Her head,

weighted now
by mortal years,

sable
garlanded with white,

falls at last
upon my knee.

It may be long,
this length of......

time
in which she moves not.

It is less than a moment to me,
for I dreme upon the wind

and the water which touches
and tickles the roots of me,

until almost I should become as
my sisters

and wake no more.

When next I heed the song of
other-earth,

a coverlet of sweet grass

cradles
her gently,



fallen leaves

golden
against raven hair,

fragile
elanor growing about her feet.

We will stay here.

She and I,
and my sisters.

Forever divided from those we love,
from those who


came to understanding
too late,

from those who sleep
and dreme no more.


I
shall sleep now,

too,
and

dreme still.


I shall sleep

and dreme

and guard her
well.

























The Tol: Frodo

How pleased the Eldest
should have been

by the

slow
thoroughness

of my waking,

the filtered prism
of autumn light

giving way

to engraven'd darkness,
Eärendil's solitary sail

holding its customary
watch,

gem'd prow

rising upon the sky-seas
of night.

Well do I remember
who Eärendil

might be,

well
do I remember

where
I have journeyed this day,

if only in dreme.

I cannot move for the wonder of it all.

I can not
move

for my sorrow.

And I *feel* the young trees about me:

how
they are a part of this earth,

a part of this
story,

a part
of

me.

Their breath
becomes

mine,

the long slow
breath

of beings

whose roots
know all,

touch
all,

*are* all.

And so it is
that here,

in this sundered place,

with the small greyness of
fog

curving about me,
and crystal water-jewels

dripping from tree-fingers,

*here*,

in my waking that is yet
a dreme,

*here*,

I say my farewells.

Undómiel.

Evenstar.

My lady.


Sleep well
within your mortal veil.


Fimbrethil.

Gentle queen
of

gentle
earth.

Let not your arms grow weary,
let not

your
thoughts fall

away.

Companion her in this great silence,
keep station

about the very
*idea*

of her.

Stay
until those lands

which were taken
in the Sea's anger

arise again.

Beyond that ending,
beyond

that beginning,

perhaps
even we

may yet meet.

Farewell.

Namarie.

Fare well.

~*~






Image sources:

Frodo's images are made from screencaps of the Eagles scene. The filter used is called "glowing edges".

Fimbrethil's sleeping image was made from a photograph of the "Mud Maid" by Sue and Pete Hill, a live plant installation at Heligan Gardens in Cornwall. Photoshopping it (using "dauber"), I tried to show Fimbrethil sleeping through the seasons into winter.

Arwen upon the hill of Cerin Amroth was created from Thomas Dodd's "Ophelia's Demise". The Dodd painting has a very dreamy, enchanted quality in its original state, which made me prefer it. Photoshopping it, I thought of it as an image not only of her losing her life but of being transformed: whatever it is that happens to mortals in Tolkien, which, though mysterious, is not bad. I am hoping the visual dissolution from image to image looks like Arwen becoming more and more immersed in, or filled with, light or flowers or stars or all of these. Although in the tale Arwen goes to Lórien to die, I feel that the images, like Jan's poem from Fimbrethil's point of view, show the larger reality. Even if her flesh decays like the ripe fruit that falls to earth, out of the exposed nut, her soul, new life will twine and grow, even if life in another world.

Other paintings that might have worked for Arwen were also of the death of Ophelia, a subject that suited my needs well. For those interested, I have linked them, according to artist:

~ Odilion Redon

~ Frances MacNair

~ John William Waterhouse

~ John Everett Millais

~ Steven Graber

~ Geroges Jules Victor Clairin

~ Oleg Timchenko

~ Mechtild





Previous Frodo-related entry:

~ For March 25, 2009: Misc. widescreen caps from the destruction of the Ring, plus jan-u-wine's "Perhaps".

Other Links:

~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.


~ Main table for all entries