woeful comet
By torchlight dim in timbered hall,
I stand while ravens cry,
Black-winged heralds of the fallen,
tearing through the sky.
They bear the words of a broken knight,
sealed in blood and rain
Yet his silent corpse rides swifter home across the darkened plain.
I was no man of golden speech,
No lord of ringing tone,
My tongue lay still as winter steel,
My grief was mine alone.
But in my hand this slender reed drank deeper than the blade,
And carved the truths I dared not speak,
in ink that would not fade.
It knows the weight of dying vows, of honour split in two,
It stains the page with farewell lines no living mouth could hew.
The knight wrote hope with trembling hand beneath the battle’s roar
Unknowing earth would claim his breath before it reached her door.
So croak, you ravens, mock the night, and scatter ash like rain
The body comes before the word, and love will read in pain.
For men may fall and steel may rust beneath the ashen sun,
But ink outlives the beating heart when flesh and fate are done.
near tiger