Author's Note: This poem is my attempt at portraying Legolas' thoughts after Aragorn falls off the cliff in The Two Towers. As a Sindarin, Legolas must have little experience with death and grief of this magnitude. Please let me know what you think of this, but no flames. I am no great poet. Also, the standard disclaimer applies. If I owned it, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction, would I?

Mourning:

Death is the tree that has grown too old and brittle.

Death is the Warg that rushes headlong into my arrow.

Death should never have touched Gandalf.

It should never have embraced Aragorn.

Gandalf has returned to us,

Yet with Aragorn's so recent fall

I am transported back to that moment when Death first made his presence known to me.

For the tree and Warg I do not mourn.

These things are natural.

And no soul parishes in their passing.

Their energy simply returns to the earth

Creating fuel for life anew.

For Gandalf and Aragorn this process should not be!

They were so much more than flesh, bone, and blood.

Some essence which must continue on!

But Gandalf has returned

And against all reason

Through my anguish there is hope.

Perhaps Aragorn will do the same.

But as I wearily rejoin the ride to the Deep

I am consumed once again with immeasurable longing.

Sadness washes over me as waves would lap at a shore.

We will not even have time to mourn his passing

I realize this

And am seized by grief once more.