Mt Glastenbury, VT. September 2009.

Into the fog, drifting, heartless

Swaying side to side to side

Walk thee ever facing forward

Think not again of those who’ve died

 

The crunch of memory underfoot

The cry of deep dark wooded night

Swallow tight thy fears of sunset

Raise up thine eyes and join the fight

 

Stumbling, reaching, beasts and burdens

Be they phantoms? be they real?

Without a sword or spear or arrow

Alone ye face them, eyes turned steel

 

Pride and doubt and rage and greed

Claw and tear and rip and shred

Slivers of cloud rain down like blindness

Shrouded by mist, the beasts have fled

 

And ye walk on. On towards daylight

Where thy name and home await

“Oh God,” ye say, “the battle’s won!”

Thy voice alight with fresh earned fate

 

Laughing, sighing, a wind caresses

“Oh no, my son, it’s just begun.”