The Keening Soils

Alone I wander, stoic and resolute
Through whipping winds and driving rains
Towards the nebulous refuge of the distant isle
Thrust cloudward from the blackened shroud of these plains.

And yet a clamour of voices gathers
Fell words carried on the roaring breath
Of a tumultuous storm that waxes large
On the crest of the distant horizon.

So many laments
So many regrets
A chorus of longing, a choir of woe
Pours from the earth like fog
An enveloping miasma that carries with it
Untold centuries of despair
A lament for the lost
A keening unheralded
Unending, unheard
By one soul save this singular, solitary wanderer.

A wanderer become mourner, one who's spirit now thrums
To the resonant howls of the ancient dead
And I cry for them with each step
I bleed for them, I howl for them
The burdensome yoke of a millennia of forgotten suffering
Bends me to the earth with chains of unspent regret.

I am on my knees in a reed-wreathed realm
Clasped by the hands of these pitiful soils
I know now I will never reach the isle
For I am now one with these voices
I am their shield, their banner, their herald
My realm is here, my refuge found.

And to the next lonely wayfarer who finds their way
To this bleak and forlorn expanse of loss
Mine will be the loudest voice amongst the many thousands
Shrieking their siren song until the of time.