Scorched Earth

Just one crazy moment while the dice are cast
He looks into the future and remembers what is past
Wonders what he's doing on this battlefield
Shrugs to his shadow, impatient, too proud yet to kneel.

In his wake he leaves scorched earth and work in vain
Smoke drifts up behind him - he is free again
Free to run before the onslaught of a deadly foe
Leaving nothing fit for pillage, hardly leaving home
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone
Charging madly forward, tracks across the snow
Wind screams madness to him, ever on he goes
Leaving spoor to mark his passage, trace his weary climb
Cross the moor and make the headland
Stumbling, wayward, blind
In the end his footprints extend as one single line.

This latest exponent of heresy is goaded into an attack
Persuaded to charge at his enemy
Too late, he knows it is
Too late now to turn back, too soon by far to falter
The past sits uneasily at his rear
He's walking right into the trap
Surrounded, but striving through will and fear
Ahead of him he knows there waits an ambuscade
But the dice slip through his fingers
And he's living from day to day
Carrying his world around upon his back
Leaving nothing behind but the tell-tale of his track.

He will not be hostage, he will not be slave
No snare of past can trap him, though the future may
Still he runs and burns behind him in advanced retreat
Still his life remains unfettered - he denies defeat
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone
Leave the past to burn - at least that's been his own.

Scorched earth, that's all that's left when he's done
Holding nothing but beholden to no-one
Claiming nothing, out of no false pride, he survives
Snow tracks are all that's left to be seen
Of a man who entered the course of a dream
Claiming nothing but the life he's known
This, at least, has been his own.