Good And Bad; Shade And

There Is No Good Or Evil, Save In The Way You See The World. There Is No Dark Or Light Save In Your Own.

There Was So Much Of Beauty Here: The Neat, Small Tracks Of A Foraging Creature, Stoat Or Marten; The Inticate Tracery Of A Skeleton Leaf, Still Clinging Vainly To Its Parent Tree As, Little By Little, Time Stripped It Of Its Substance, Leaving Only The Delicate Remembrance Of What It Had Been.

I Had Grown Up. I Had Learned That Being A Woman Was Knowing When To Stand Firm And When To Compromise. I Had Learned To Laugh And Weep; I Had Learned That I Was Weak As Well As Strong. I Had Learned To Love. I Was No Longer A Rigid, Upright Tree That Would Not Flex And Bow, Even Though The Gale Threatened To Snap It In Two; I Was The Willow That Bends And Shivers And Sways, And Yet Remains Strong.

Because If I See You Defeated, Then I Think I Will See Alban Defeated, And If That Happens, None Of Us Can Go On. To Guard You Is To Guard The Heart Of This Land Of Ours.

Stronger Than Iron Crueler Than Death Sweeter Than Springtime It Lives Beyond Breath