AT THE GLEN

Sunlight dried the beds of clover damp in blood of righteous people
Slain in fear with no protection and no hand to hold but faith
Rise the vultures from that graveyard, swooping o’er the stains of crimson
As the critters of the woodlands weep amidst communal wraith

Stumbling through the mossy forest, bound, were led twelve earthfolk prisoners
Followed by their little children, weak and weary and afraid
Each was torn of cords and bracelets, sprinkled in a holy water
All were gathered in a circle, marked with black salt on the glade

Then, by order of the nobles, they were stripped and fiercely beaten
Thrown onto the ground with boulders, stabbed and whipped to sense’s end
As the foremen crudely chanted, they watched their forsaken brothers
Fall upon their knees to perish, for no wrong lives to expend

All things living and nonliving heard their desperate cries for mercy
As their screams rose through the woodlands, down to valleys and the sea
Crying to their gods and spirits that they watch over their being
And that their return to Nature all who hear would oversee

When, at last, the men lay lifeless, the aggressors burned their clothing
Tied the orphans to the bodies of their mothers and withdrew
These first struggled then, exhausted, sadly gazed upon each other
Lay their heads upon the corpses and from thirst had perished too

So the chaos of the meadow came unto a ringing silence
As a mist it traveled gently, falling onto every hide
Some emerged to offer comfort, licking clean their wounds of water
Then collapsed from sorrow’s poison, dying by their trusted side

So the field of green was littered with the bodies of the heathens
Barren grew the salted ground which led the flow’rs and grass to wilt
How quiet were the wooded hollows, silent stood the fading mountains
Rushing water turned the figures into pools of bloodied silt

Passed few moons- the clouds departed and the air began to soften
Filled the brooks again with water, life turned beautiful agaín
Now the glen is kissed with sunlight, grass has sprouted on the hillock
Marked the gravestone is with flowers that had bloomed ‘neath summer rain

These the sweetest in the woodlands, but no deer will come to taste them
And no bird shall fly too close as tribute mark of this rebirth
For despite successive healing, what took place was not forgotten
Tainted salt and blood of martyrs had forever marked that earth