March Song
The March song kisses mountain walls,
Canyons of breathing echoes,
Recording in their resumes
My whispered dialogue of farewells.
Farewells embodying reluctance,
The reluctance of renewed warfare,
Of the losing and fighting and winning,
But mostly of the losing, the dour forsaking.
A song of an ancient bronze god,
Cracked and coloured earthen ochre,
Sinewy legs planting shadows in the spring fields,
Muscled chest scarred with bloodied iron ribs.
A song of a virgin’s ambivalent regret,
Regret of surrender, of haemorrhaging sex into soil,
First love freely given, like the vestal Rhea Silvia,
To some sporadic god of death.
And a song that so clearly defines
My prayers for a future life,
Of love and peace avenged of neglect,
So reborn, reclaiming a better world.
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