Coming of age, they brought me up
In the darkness, to a bloody altar.
Made myself a sacrifice unknown;
To a fault my loyalty shone
Like the polished scabbard of my blade.
Into the world, a star from heaven
Was my coming; my proud cohort
Gave way in time to prouder legion.
And steel made splendour as of gold
Each battlefield I turned my art upon.
Learnt to bear arms, not give them away
Under their own weight, in their own time;
Each black leaf uncurled, a winter wound,
Like silence ending the years
Of a body’s celebration.
Learnt to hold suffering in a fond
Embrace, in one hand, sometimes in two;
I laughed sometimes at the day’s horror,
At the sounds of children in
Saddened fire-rubbled homes.
In the world, I was a Hunter’s star.
But trees taught me a different lesson:
Taught me to wait the years without
Destruction or despair.
This was many summers gone.
Older now, my legions dust on dust,
I keep my blade as silver as before.
The work brings memory to mind
Of how much the cleaning of a sword
May cost in trees cut down and burnt.
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