The Gibbet Elms

We have stood for centuries Sentinels that frame the sky We have felt the exhalation Of souls passed under us We have trembled in the cold winds That lash the soils of death We have drawn upon the poisoned strength Of earth steeped in sorrow Our limbs have twitched and quivered To the sound of myriad snapping necks Our roots remained anchored and unmoved To the whispers of ending that clamour within All now is silent and still Yet resting not are the echoes of the lost As twilight descends and the murders wheel to roost The fallen rise again like mist To drape once more from our arms Like the rotting sails of a long-abandoned vessel The scars of time have reaved their pain not As the land sings its death-song again We have stood for centuries Sentinels that frame the sky We have drawn upon the poisoned strength Of earth steeped in sorrow A final threnody for a forlorn convoy That wanders, lost, in this bleak labyrinth Condemned to the aether beyond time A memorial pain unyielding that seeps into our souls