Horrordeath

Here all things are born and die on their own.
A great stone. A scar. A mumbled, muted word.
Spring is its mother and stepmother, wicked and shrewd.
Ashes of the dream, dream of the ashes. Horrordeath.

Droughts drink it, black rains sift it,
days heap it with night, layer upon layer,
while down its hide the vertebrae stiffen
with ossified shadows of raw flesh and rage.

Here winds are whistling and dark ghosts wail,
here the first crime, sin, punishment, rebuke.
Here sleep human and beast in one lair,
and the little child takes her first stumbling step.

The bread on it grows from a root deep and bitter,
so it is dry and sweet and sears like a flame.
Song, should some weary hermit accost you,
accept him as your own: he burns the same.

O rose in the throat, snakeberry in the mouth,
wild itch of blood with itself contending;
O land of delectable, deadly poisons,
the blazing boulder rolls. Burning. Burning. Burning.

Here all things, on their own, are born and die.
A great stone. A scar. A mumbled, muted word.
Spring is its mother and stepmother, full of lies.
Ashes of the dream, dream of the ashes. Horrordeath.