A poem from the Rawhide Cycle |
Rawhide Chronicles: A Death in the Family He had loved her. She loved him. His grave was a hole in her heart. Her tears fell like rain into the thirsty dust. Her hair, shining of sun, crimson of blood. Her swollen eyes the green of dead pine. Her knees bit the dust, she knelt. Her face His coffin A final union. Her cries were lapped up by the cruel wind Eager for lament In a land of death. The dust covered both. The dust of the wind. The dust of a hundred bitter deaths. Bitter in taste, bitter of feel. The sun burned. Eager to kill A sun-baked land. Rocks of solid fire Burn her feet. Her dying heart alights One final wish. Her mind goes back Retrograde of past recalling She sees the darkness Her mind’s eye cold Objective All-seeing No regard for wishes. The Cloak. Soaking the darkness. Spreading the darkness. Eating the light. The shot The laugh The hard voice The thunder of the fleeing feet The delight of hatred on the hastily turned face As darkness overtakes. Shredding her life Taking her love Leaving her empty Save for this. Her fired heart Her frigid mind. They merge as one to produce her last wish Now silent, she stands. Her drape tugs at her back She pays no heed to the sadistic wind. She single-mindedly treads the dust. It has no place in her mind. The graveyard behind her Her end and all ends ahead The door But a threshold of the house. The door The threshold between past and present It opens. She enters. His weapons are in a drawer. Another threshold. Another boundary crossed. You can never return. She carries them on her hip Gleaming metal Once symbols of love Reclaimed. Symbols of vengeance Love twisted to a dark path. Once more into the breach The final threshold Between her And the end. It is crossed. There is no return. The way is shut. It is barred. Only what lies ahead Is left. She treads the dust again. The sun sets on her Shadows leap. She projects her own. She treads to the sun. Her final task is begun. The one known as Cloak Has little left Of his numbered days. |