(Author’s note: After the loss of a limb many people experience the sensation of a phantom extremity, which can sometimes be painful. The speaker in this poem is Maedhros, following the loss of his hand.)

 

 

After Amputations, by Ithilwen

 

A hand of searing air you did transplant

To bloody wrist by sweeping slash of blade;

How can such savage pain, so penetrant,

Within ethereal flesh be ever made?

Absences too often can burn inside a heart –

Through pride and war a beloved father lost;

Both friends and kin now cruelly ripped apart

By argument, and ocean’s vast expanse uncrossed,

And through the ruthless toll in treasured lives

The fearsome return passage did exact

With storm’s and frost’s and hunger’s bitter knives

While wandering dark frigid wastes untracked;

And a city fair, cast then aside in haste,

Now with regret in fragile memory held –

White walls with iridescent jewels traced,

The cherished home where I in childhood dwelled;

But most of all my tortured heart does cry

From cruel loss of innocence once my own,

Unwittingly destroyed in bloody acts that I

Will forever mourn but cannot now disown.

Both soul and flesh shall always suffer anguish

To which I must somehow become inured;

No hope these hurts to ever extinguish,

For phantom pains can only be endured.