TREE OF PROPHECY
He is a collector of voices.
Here is a collection of voices.
Rhythms of breathed sound,
A sealed moment, the dead
Still living here, whispering.
On the edge of a void uncrossable,
A wriggling wall of prophecy.
Membranes of prayer,
Shading itself, a tented haunting.
A tree shaken bare by unbearable noise
Re-inhabited by a million singing souls,
( the birds of dawn and endless, endless sunsets).
One will come roaring, one will come.
Black words will fly out,
A challenge of why and how and by what right.
Trespassing and lost, though strangely mirroring.
Ashes endlessly rekindled, the taste of starlight.
Swept away, though locked to anchored word,
A world here and gone, the apparel of eternity.
We clothe the tunes of emptiness
And seek to learn the reasons why.
The sun has passed, the birds are singing.
The storm is coming, a dark cloud through the long wood.
These clear-eyed beautiful boys
Riding their jeeps, cradling their holy guns.
They have won, whether they live or die.
Certain and blessed, spilling seed and blood.
It is the way it has always been:
The bitter tongue and languid hand,
The sharp old men whispering reasons
Goading on righteous atrocity,
And the doe-eyed compliance of their girls.
Unshakable promises, the beauty
Of the certainty of a righteous death.
The will of gods ploughing the land,
Burying the bones again and again.
Warriors of the shattered dawn.
Blood feeding the roots again.
Eternal fire, eternal hunger.
Spent shells of glory,
Again, again, again.
—
simonhlilly 
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