Hung

Hung

Rope, the rope around his neck
Clenches, wrenches life from him, leaves him a wreck
And another one hangs on this dark hill
From a tree branch gnarled, his life fulfilled

A gallows improvised by someone here
Appearing, dozens and dozens, more with every year
For what are they hung, what sins have they committed?
Their faces, ghastly now, rotted and pitted

Eyeless looks are shot, cadavers here see
Death’s domain here lies, a macabre mystery
Trees still dead, but not yet fallen
There is no grass, no flowers with their pollen

Only ash lies near the trunks, so gray, so gray
No one ever to this corner comes, not even to pray
Few know that it exists, and of those none know the intent
For the mystery of life and death lies in these events

Lo! A girl climbs up the slope, whatever for?
She is innocent, clean is her soul’s core
To the cadavers she looks, ravens pecking their eyes
Misery and death! Misery and death here lies

The new corpse she spots, still fresh, still not decayed
His features warm, though his eyes now fade
Tears come rolling down her cheeks
In darkness, she kneels in ash and weeps

Tears fall to the ground, salty and bitter
As bitter as her heart now is, so bitter, always bitter…
“So I find you now at last, but what peace does that bring?
You did not choose this fate, death took you under her wing…”

Kneeling in the ash, more tears are shed and shed
From the heart’s deep gloom she bled and bled
After a fortnight’s mourning for her love, now lost
She stood up and went, never turned, minding not the cost

But where her bitter tears fell and wet the earth
A miracle magnificent was given birth
Upon a patch of ash, gray and black not long ago
A blade of greenest grass was now healthily aglow