I Am the War-Rose

2nd Poem in "Songs for Kingdom's End"

I am the War-Rose,

fell and terror-wrought,

calling to days without hope,

days like fire standing at the gate

and sound surrounded in despair.

Gone are days of old;

come now, captains of lesser worlds, as

evening dwindles faintly in the whispered word.

This is the age of the wildwood,

the sound of many things returning home.

The bird flies back to the battlefield,

takes its place on a shattered limb.

War engines are turning off, shutting down.

How great the silence is,

the absence of progress,

no moving forward nor song to march to.

War-rose am I,

grown on graves unmarked,

field of living things.