The Second Book of the Dun Cow: Lamentations

  [Forty-Two] What Had Come to Pass

  Out of the north there blew a great and mighty wind.

  It stirred the clouds in heaven. It blasted them into flying scuds, then swept them clean away.

  Dawn broke in the east.

  The wind was an omnipotent tempest that lifted the blanket of Wyrm’s ocean and rolled it back like a scroll.

  It was from the summit of the cosmic mountain that this gale was rushing. The Dun Cow had elevated her head and had distended her nostrils. She breathed across the continents. She was an ungentle spirit. Her single horn was an ivory wand.

  She did not reveal her purpose, not by her posture nor by in any aspect of her being. Simply, the Dun Cow is sovereign of the air.

  Her breath was the vernal spring. Fimbul-winter cracked and perished. Seedlings sprouted.

  [Forty-Three] In Which Pertelote Sings a Memorial Song

  After the wind ceased, the plain Brown Bird brought a winding sheet which she hasd knit with the needle of her beak. Together, she and Pertelote spread it over Chauntecleer’s corpse.

  Four Hens wrapped it closed, and seven Mice tucked it under.

  The digging Animals had opened the tomb. The Family Swarm had sealed its sides and its floor with a sweetly scented wax.

  And as the funeral procession moved to Chauntecleer’s grave, Pertelote sang:

  “He woke me from my slumbering

  And taught softly how to sing

  The songs.

  To him my mornings and that part

  Of me most holy—oh, my heart—

  Belongs.

  And who was bolder on the ground?

  Or who more golden sailed around

  The skies?

  Remember you? Oh, Lord, I will

  Remember none but you until

  I die.

  My dear, my dear,

  My Chauntecleer.”

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