Arrow

Stub towers in the distance
Riders cross the blasted moor against the horizon
Fickle promises of treaty
Fatal harbingers of war, futile orisons.

Swirl as one in this flight, this mad chase
This surge across the marshy mud landscape
Until the meaning is forgotten.

Hood masks the eager face
Skin stretched and sallow
Headlong into the chilling night
As swift as any arrow.

Feet against the flagstones
Fingers scrabbling at the lock, craving protection
Sanctuary croaks a voice
Half-strangled by the shock of its rejection.

Shot the bolt in the wall, rusted the key
Now the echoes of all frightful memory
Intrude in the silence.

What a crawl against the slope
Dark loom the gallows
One touch to the chapel door
How swiftly comes the arrow.

Compassion you plead, as though they kept it in a box
Well, that's long since been empty
I'd like to help you somehow but I'm in the self-same spot
My condition exempts me.

We are all on the run on our knees
The sundial draws a line upon eternity
Across every number.

How long the time seems
How dark the shadow
How straight the eagle flies
How straight towards his arrow.

How long the night is
Why is this passage so narrow?
How strange my body feels
Impaled upon the arrow.